The Cockleshell Heroes

CinemaSerf

HM Royal Marines don't tend to be centre-stage in many films depicting their wartime escapades. This one recounts their exploits trying to canoe up the Garonne and attack some vital Nazi shipping. The plot is quite interesting but both José Ferrer and Trevor Howard miss their targets - both performances are as strained as their on-screen relationship purports to be. It does celebrate the valiant efforts, however, of this daring raid with great looking photography and Ferrer directs this with a true sense of the jeopardy of the whole enterprise.