Sadly Over-hyped

Don't Believe the Hype

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

THE COCKLESHELL HEROES is a decent example of a men-on-a-mission war movie, presided over by an interesting cast of famous faces and with a true story hook for added intrigue. This WW2-set tale is about some important German ships moored on the river in Bordeaux and the British plan to send ten men up the river in canoes to attach limpet mines to the ships to sink them. Anyone who's a fan of suspenseful modern war films like MAX MANUS: MAN OF WAR will enjoy this one too. The emphasis is on sneakiness here as the marines must go in quietly to avoid getting captured; I won't spoil what happens, only to say it treads the fine line between documentary-style realism and excitement.Although I normally don't like films that take a long time to get to the 'meat' of the story, I didn't mind it with THE COCKLESHELL HEROES because the training sequences are fun to watch. I particularly loved the 'test' undergone by the heroes in which they must make their way across England undercover; plenty of laughs ensue. Plus, the constant battle of wills between Jose Ferrer (who also directed) and the reliable Trevor Howard is never less than watchable.Cast-wise, the likes of Anthony Newley and Victor Maddern stand out, and there are plenty more familiar faces around including David Lodge, Peter Arne, John Van Eyssen (of Hammer's Dracula), Percy Herbert and even Christopher Lee in a small role. This isn't really a guns-blazing type movie but the high humour quotient more than makes up for the lack of action; my favourite scene is the one where David Lodge goes A.W.O.L. to take care of family business.

Jose Ferrer directed this story of a dozen or so Royal Marines who volunteer to paddle some kayaks up the river to Bordeaux during World War II and blow up some ships with limpet mines.There isn't much here that you haven't seen in war movies elsewhere. The first half is essentially a training camp comedy with the misfits violating military rules and playing grab ass in the barracks. In the second part, the good-natured playfulness is replaced by a serious and determined effort to get the job done, even though it leads to the death of most of the members of the unit.The story serves up one cliché after another. There is, for instance, an abrasive relationship between the newly appointed commanding officer, Ferrer, and his next in command, the by-the-book Trevor Howard. Ferrer is too good to his men and they treat him like a marshmallow. He has to learn from Howard that the men must be licked into shape. (Usually, this formulaic relationship is the other way round, with the new CO having to impose harsh discipline on all his subordinates to snap them out of their lax ways.) Then there is the uniformed blond in the pub, the one who comes out of nowhere, accompanied by a fulsome orchestra, singing "The London I Love." Then there is the interservice rivalry brawl in the pub in which every glass object is shattered and all the furniture destroyed but nobody gets a bloody nose.Two men are captured and not only won't tell the Nazi officer what their mission is. They don't speak at all. The officer thinks himself clever when he has the men separated and given "questionnaires" to fill out, figuring one of them will rat on the mission to save his own skin. It's a version of a game called "the prisoner's dilemma." Does either man fill out the questionnaire? You don't even need to ask.Before the end credits roll, there is the ghostly parade of those who have died on the mission, not as well done as it was some quarter of a century earlier in "All Quiet on the Western Front." The direction is not bad, just pedestrian. The acting is done mostly by seasoned professionals and is agreeable enough. Trevor Howard does the best job. The dialog can't be said to scintillate exactly. The humor, like just about everything else, is broad and spelled out. Example: One of the heroes in his canoe is hiding from a German patrol boat by snuggling up against the hull of a ship. A cook dumps a bucket of waste overboard and it lands on the guy in the canoe, who looks upward in disgust and mutters a curse we can't hear. Anyone could write and film that scene. It leaps into the mind whenever the brain lapses into theta waves. But compare the similar scene in David Lean's "The Bridge on the River Kwai." William Holden is in the water at the base of the bridge when a Japanese soldier spits. The gob of saliva plops just in front of Holden's half-submerged face. Without lifting his head, Holden rolls his eyes upward, glowers, and slowly submerges. Some creative effort shows in the scene, whereas none is evident in "Cockleshell Heroes." The editing is off too. I was never sure by the end exactly how many canoes were involved. The most we see on the screen at one time are five (I think). Yet three seem to be lost during the mission and there are still three others (at least) who plant their bombs according to plan.I've been pretty negative about the film so far, but it's not all that bad. It's not insulting. It's not an animated cartoon. It just lacks originality in many of its features. But clichés exist for a reason, namely that they work. (Otherwise they wouldn't become clichés.) Some of the ludic episodes are pretty funny. And the notion of paddling canoes up a French river to blow up some ships is novel.I kind of enjoyed it, but so much more could have been done with it.

Nice and entertaining war movie made or influenced by the Hollywood war film school of the 50s. Soft made army life and war fighting and dying adapted to the eye of the watcher of that time. Beautiful and everlasting colors of the Technicolor war film typical for war epic movie which this film definitely isn't. Good and saturated film composition, typical gags for the time of filming are pretty much watchable today. Imaginative dose of sarcasm that tends to launch Hollywood humor of that era in this UK film suits the whole idea pretty nice. Very realistic depiction of the action itself without exaggeration which is almost impossible to see in the US movies on the same topic even today. All in all, cute WWII film, especially recommended to the WWII buffs. 6 out of 10.

The 1950's were a surprisingly good decade for the British war movie. During those years of victorious rationing and austerity, one has the impression that the queue-stricken public needed to be reminded as to who actually won the war. Before the universal availability of television, cinema offered the only easy escapism that was available to and cheap enough for the masses. It was the national panacea.In those days money was scarce and movies cheaply made. But even so, there were lots of truly excellent examples, notably 'Ice Cold In Alex', 'The Dam Busters' and 'The Cruel Sea' - one of the most authentic and gripping war movies of all time.But this item simply doesn't compare.Jose Ferrer, the director, seems to have had at least enough funding. Unusually for its genre, it was shot in colour. There was plenty of location-work too - even access to a submarine. Yet the cast was hardly expensive A-list material. Apart from Trevor Howard, there were just a couple of British character stalwarts. And I have never been a fan of Anthony Newley. His 'cheeky-chappie' persona has invariably been a thumbs-down for any movie. I am apt to wonder if Mr Ferrer as the director/star was afraid of being outshone by an excess of talent in the ranks.Preparations for the mission went on just far too long. As a result, the story began to get lost in trivial minutiae. We saw a tedious, embittered confessional from Trevor Howard's character, which cut to an amateurish female singer; we were obliged to endure her whole routine as she wandered around a bar, flirting amicably with its clientèle like 'Nancy' from Lionel Bart's 'Oliver'. What - was this a musical then? Her song was punctuated with a fight, and finally a childish monologue from Anthony Newley, in testament to his lack of comic skill. The combined takes lasted for almost 9 utterly pointless, meandering and wasted minutes.I have seen Jose Ferrer do excellent work as an actor, notably in 'The Caine Mutiny'; he's not too bad in this either. But as a director he evidently had no sense of economy. The scenes above and many others would have carried more drama with half as much celluloid. This was a case of cut and cut again. The mission was the big issue here, and should have occupied at least half the movie. If the preparations must be emphasised then details should have been relevant. For example; we see the team ascending and abseiling up and down cliffs, yet none were to be encountered on the mission. They were canoing not climbing. Compare this with 'The Dam Busters' where there is equally lengthy preamble in creating the bomb - from marbles in the garden, to convincing sceptical authorities. Yet all of it is pertinent to the outcome. The pacing is near perfect. Barnes Wallis's chafing impatience replicates the mission's urgency in the movie's early stages.As the culmination of their work, the destruction of the ships should have been much more dynamic in its presentation, and surely deserved more detail and therefore time. The sequence lasted just 20 seconds, and this in a total running-time of 94 minutes. For comparison; Howard's griping lasted 120 seconds and Newley's prattle 55 seconds. Confused priorities or what?The destruction itself was pitiful. A few models and firecrackers? Hardly a tribute to those who's courage the movie presumes to extol. Most of the men died for that magnificent anti-climax. Ships are being scrapped all the time. Couldn't they have found a few hulks and really gone to town on some convincing big bangs?There were also gaping holes in the plot: like their discovery by a dog and Ferrer's character disclosing himself to a large group of French fisherman. He returns, announcing 'They'll be alright'. How did he know? There may have been supporters of the Vichy government amongst them. Twenty times as many French people collaborated with the Nazis than supported the resistance. You couldn't trust anyone. Their mission and their lives depended upon strictest secrecy. And this is where the spare celluloid should have gone: emphasising the eternal moments of danger. The waiting, the not-sleeping, the stress and fear of discovery; so much more could have been done with these issues to emphasise the gripping sense of peril.Then that needlessly jaunty theme music would keep piping-up. 'A life on the ocean wave'; give me a break. And 'night-time' bore a striking similarity to any winter afternoon, it was so ludicrously light. As to marching-off down the road accompanied by the ghosts of the fallen - how corny an ending is that? Mr Ferrer should have stuck to acting.