• Rating:
• Genre: Drama
• Movie Type: Sea Adventure, Adventure Drama
• Themes: Crisis of Conscience, War At Sea
• Director: Lewis Gilbert
• Main Cast: Alec Guinness, Dirk Bogarde, Anthony Quayle, Tom Bell, Maurice Denham, Nigel Stock
• Release Year: 1962
• Country: UK
• Run Time: 101 minutes
• MPAA Rating: NR

Plot

Damn the Defiant! is an 18th-century seafaring drama from director Lewis Gilbert. Alec Guinness plays the stern but compassionate captain of a British warship, engaged in the Napoleonic wars. Guinness is popular with his men, which is more than can be said for his new second-in-command Dirk Bogarde. When Guinness tries to modify Bogarde's sadistic adherence to discipline, Bogarde responds by mistreating Guinness' cabin-boy son, knowing that the captain cannot intervene under the edicts of British maritime law. During an incipient mutiny, Bogarde is accidently killed, and Guinness knows that the crewmen responsible must hang once they reach shore. But after these same men perform courageously in battle, Guinness suffers a crisis of conscience: How can he condemn these fearlessly patriotic men to death, as he knows he must? Based on the novel Mutiny by Frank Tilsley. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Cast

• Alec Guinness - Capt. Crawford
• Dirk Bogarde - Lt. Scott-Padget
• Anthony Quayle - Vizard
• Tom Bell - Evans
• Maurice Denham - Surgeon Goss
• Nigel Stock - Senior Midshipman Kilpatrick

Walter Fitzgerald - Adm. Jackson; Victor Maddern - Dawlish; Murray Melvin - Wagstaffe; Johnny Briggs - Wheatley; Richard Carpenter - Lt. Ponsonby; Bryan Pringle - Sgt. Kneebone; Joy Shelton - Mrs. Crawford; David Robinson - Harvey Crawford; Ray Brooks - Hayes; Michael Coles - Flag Lieutenant; Ann Lynn - Young Wife; Andre Maranne - Col. Giraud; Declan Mulholland - Morrison; Russell Napier - Flag Captain; Brian Phelan - Grimshaw; Robin Stewart - Pardoe; Toke Townley - "Silly Billy" Whiting; Anthony Oliver - Tavern Leader; Peter Greenspan - Johnson

Credit

Lord John Brabourne - Producer; Christopher G. Challis - Cinematographer; Lewis Gilbert - Director; Peter Hunt - Editor; Nigel Kneale - Screenwriter; Arthur Lawson - Art Director; Howard Lydecker - Special Effects; Terence Morgan II - Set Designer; Edmund H. North - Screenwriter; Clifton Parker - Composer (Music Score); Ernie Sullivan - Special Effects; Frank Tilsley - Book Author

Similar Movies

The Bounty; Mutiny on the Bounty; Mutiny on the Bounty; Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World; The Sea Wolf; The Caine Mutiny; Captain Horatio Hornblower