Plustown
A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.
Tyreece Hulme
One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.
Zlatica
One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.
Spikeopath
Sink the Bismarck! Is directed by Lewis Gilbert and adapted to screenplay by Edmund North from the book written by C.S. Forester. It stars Kenneth More, Dana Wynter, Carl Möhner, Laurence Naismith, Geoffrey Keen, Karel Stepanek, Michael Hordern and Maurice Denham. Music is by Clifton Parker and CinemaScope photography by Christopher Challis. World War II, the North Atlantic, the British Navy desperately tries to sink Germany's prime battleship. The scourge of the seas, The Bismarck. Cracker-jack war movie that brings brains and brawn to the party. Instrumentally the pic is concerned with the officers back at headquarters (Moore outstanding), how they try to device a plan to capture and sink The Bismarck. The second guessing of its movements, the attempts to keep a lid on the emotional pains as news filters through about losses in battle, men missing in action, with some personal issues bubbling away to further compound the hot-bed of stress. This all makes for a riveting and intelligent backdrop to the scenes out at sea. It's fascinating that as Winston Churchill was demanding that he didn't care how they did it, that they simply must destroy The Bismark, Hitler was sending out birthday greetings and pleasantries to his Naval commanders. The battle scenes are spanking, a mixture of real footage, great model work and superb effects, while the great Christopher Challis photographs it all in screen filling clarity. Stiff upper lips at the ready for a truly great WWII movie. 8/10
tieman64
Advances in aviation and air-to-surface weapons led to the death of lumbering, iron clad battleships. By the early 60s most of these ships were scrapped or decommissioned. As a result, Lewis Gilbert's "Sink the Bismarck!" is one of the last films to feature real, WW2 era British warships. It's also one of the better of many naval movies released in the late 50s and early 60s ("Damn the Defiant!", "The Caine Mutiny", "The Sand Pebbles", "The Bedford Incident" "Run Silent, Run Deep", "The Sea Chase", "The Enemy Below").Adopting a dry (it's a British production, you see), somewhat documentarian tone, the film is a cat and mouse techno-thriller in which the British Admirality, led by Chief of Naval Operations Captain Jonathan Shepard, attempts to intercept and sink the Bismarck, a deadly German battleship (the largest ship ever built by any European country) which has been decimating Allied convoys.Unlike most of these films, the action takes place largely in an underground war room where tactics and orders are cooked up and transmitted to the fleet. It's a chess game, our Chief of Naval Operations, who spends the film looming over maps and war boards, risking thousands of lives with each decision.Unsurprisingly, the film demonizes Admiral Lutjens, the man in command of the Bismarck. He's your typical Nazi villain, bent on destroying the world with his deadly toys. In real life, Lutjens despised both Nazi policies and Hitler, and was deeply pessimistic about both his mission and the capabilities of his super ship. The film is designed to appeal squarely to WW2 veterans and their wide eyed sons. It captures the skill of British naval gunners at the time; the Bismarck may have out-gunned and out-tonned her opponents, but British gunners were notorious for hitting their targets early, fast and precisely. Bismarck was one year old when she bit seabed.7.9/10 – Worth one viewing.
elcoat
I saw this as a kid when it first came out, and was thrilled by it. Aurora Models came out with a Bismarck kit soon thereafter, and of course Revell and Airfix came out with far better ones.Overall, the film is excellent - especially the modelwork featuring the blowup of Hood.Inaccuracies include documentary footage of British pom-pom antiaircraft guns supposedly firing from Bismarck - the American Bofors manned by actors in German helmets was far better and should have been used more.The Swordfish going out on the recon mission from Ark Royal are carrying torpedoes, while the ones going out for the final aerial attack on Bismarck aren't - someone in the studio mistakenly switched the film sequences.There is no camouflage painting on the models, although at the time the film was made, that information might have been hard to have.Others have mentioned the very wrongful depiction of Lutjens as a die-hard Nazi. For dramatic effect, it had its purpose - "Never forget that you are German! Never forget that you are Nazis!" - but an historically accurate non-Nazi Lutjens and zealous Lindemann could have been even better.As to the fact that not all Germans were Nazis, a decisive number certainly were, and scenes like in Das Boot where the Germans were outraged that crewmen left on a tanker hadn't been rescued by the beleaguered Royal Navy are hard to stomach.As to the human interest angle of CAPT Shepard, his missing in action son, and WREN Davis, his early inquiry into her personal relationships seemed inconsistent and contrived, to say the least, right after his opening emphasis on being impersonal on duty.(Unhappily, WREN Davis - the beautiful German-born British actress Dana Wynter - just recently died on May 6th of this year, 2011. Basic to Dana Wynter's attractiveness - besides her dark-haired physical beauty - was the luminous intelligence and sensitivity reflecting in her eyes.)Bismarck was one of the most dangerous battleships of its time - ranking with Yamato, Musashi, slow Rodney and Nelson, and the modern American 16" gun ships - but it had flaws. Typical of WW2 German warships, its tonnage/size was out of proportion to its armament. And armor was not as important as armament: once large caliber shells began hitting and exploding, any ship's fighting effectiveness plunged.Washington or South Dakota would have sent Bismarck's sistership Tirpitz to the bottom quickly, had they ever had a chance to fight her.It is my opinion that British gunnery was the best in the world throughout WW2. Renown was scoring early, decisive hits - even a conning tower hit - on Scharnhorst and Gneisenau off Norway in early 1940, which sent S&G fleeing. Heavy cruiser Dorsetshire scored an early conning tower hit on the final battle against Bismarck. Heavy cruiser Norfolk scored an early, decisive 8" hit on Scharnhorst's fire control off the North Cape, Christmas 1943, albeit at the same time getting hit (by 11" duds) in return. KGV-class Prince of Wales scored on Bismarck significantly, and KGV-class Duke of York scored the decisive power plant hit on Scharnhorst at the North Cape.At the same time it should be mentioned that the 14" guns of those KGV class British battleships chronically malfunctioned throughout the war, although their fire control was so accurate that the fewer shells still scored sufficient significant hits in their battles.By the way, I have an original 1940 Luftwaffe Allied warship recognition book which cites Hood's weakness - biggest ship in the Royal Navy or not - and somewhere I read that Admiral Holland wanted to position battleship Prince of Wales to be Bismarck's first target rather than battle cruiser Hood, but the encounter went otherwise.Finally, I might mention that in 2012 Airfix models came out with a 1:1200 Sink the Bismarck set of exquisite tabletop waterline models. Bismarck, Prinz Eugen, Ark Royal, Hood, Suffolk, and 2 of the Tribal class destroyers are included. And I myself designed 1:1200 cardstock paper models of the other ships - Rodney, King George V, Prince of Wales, Norfolk, Dorsetshire, some Tribals, and the J/K/N class Polish destroyer Piorun - to complement the Airfix set. Assembling paper models can be slow, intense work, as simple as these models may be.Indeed, I've now got some of them up on one my CoatneyHistory webpage ... as long as that lasts ... free to print off (in color even), assemble, and re-fight battles with.The more we learn about the Second World War, the better our chances it will be the LAST world war.Lou CoatneyA postscript:Fifteen or so years ago, I was photocopying U.S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence plans to use in designing my cardstock model ships. I was in the Western Illinois University Library, and an English-born lady - the wife of an elderly chess-playing friend - saw me and was fascinated by what I was doing. I explained, and she said that before World War 2, she and her family went aboard and visited Royal Navy warships and what a wonderful time they had talking with the sailors.And then she started to cry. Some of those ships - and I gathered one was Hood - had been destroyed and those boys had been killed. I tried to say something to console her but nothing helped, and she left the library still crying.I love studying and wargaming World War 2, its ships and other equipment, and such, but we NEVER want another world war ... and our own children and families - or others' - to go through such horror and grief.
BigBobFoonman
Yes, my children, there was a time when movies knew nothing of CGI, and very difficult scenes of violence and destruction were given over to names like Buddy Gillespie, Wally Veevers, and Warren Newcombe, Howard and Teddy Lydecker. These men looked deep inside their childhoods, and started using miniatures, filmed at slow motion camera speeds to proportionately smooth out the movement of model ships, water, model airplanes, collapsing and exploding buildings, even crash model cars.The most difficult miniature work was with water and the look of the water in relation to a miniature ship.It was found that the larger the model ship, the more realistic the water looked, and in Columbia's "Sink the Bismarck", the ships were anywhere from 40-60 feet in length. The water body was an indoor pool over 300 ft. in diameter, surrounded by wind machines and under the floor of the tank, large hydraulic pistons created waves.Can you imagine what fun that was? Blowing up and sinking these huge models.....it was a dream of mine for years.Today, a scruffy kid sits in front of a computer and creates sea battles and catastrophes that are astoundingly realistic. He uses 1's and 0's.....nothing of the physical world.Still, the destruction of the Bismarck, and the capstone piece, the massive explosion of the H.M.S. Hood amaze and awe anyone who watches this film today.This is a WWII film for the ages, and a centerpiece of a very fun special-effects era.
