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How sad is this?

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The reviewers here so far like this film very much but seem to have various kinds of sentimental attachments to it. I don't have any--no memories of seeing it when I was young, no family, friends or acquaintances involved in the mission, no external notions from reading about it. I just watched it as a general moviegoer from the early 21st century. In my opinion The Cockleshell heroes has worn badly over the years.The first part, covering the selection of the participants and their training, has very little information in it--a tiny bit about limpet mines, a scene of soldiers climbing rock cliffs (no such landscape shows up later in the mission), perhaps one potentially interesting challenge forcing the men to use their wits to move around the countryside, but more close-order drilling than anything. Apart from the two officers and one soldier who goes AWOL to beat up a man who's been having an affair with his wife while he's away, there is almost nothing to distinguish one character from another. And there is no acting. The little tension between two officers leads only to a few moments of the two exchanging their points of view. Jose Ferrer delivers pretty much all his lines in the same tone of voice: it's a nice voice, it would be great narrating a documentary on some serious subject, but it has no emotional inflection in this movie.But what really spoils this long first section of the movie is the abundance of "cute" vignettes. A parachutist lands in cow manure, a hitchhiker gets a ride with a ridiculous fast-talking matron, the near-naked men run past a group of nuns. Tired, old tropes even for 1955, and far, far too many of them.Once the mission begins there is almost no dialogue, mostly scenes of men padding in their kayaks (called "canoes" in the movie). It's pretty dull stuff, and the director obviously thought music would be needed to keep audiences interested. But what awful music! On and on it goes, a symphony orchestra playing meaningless, vaguely military-sounding riffs non-stop, not in the least adapted to what's happening at the moment on the screen, just mindless orchestral noise that never stops. After a while I actually turned off the sound on my television to escape from the never-ending assault on my ears. And-- this is incredible-- during one supposed scene of deep thoughtfulness, when after a night of drinking an older officer is alone in a board room telling the sad story of his life to another officer, the same nonsensical orchestral tooting and shrilling continues ridiculously from beginning to end. It really should go down as one of the worst uses of music ever in the history of film making.As for action scenes, there's not much and not presented with any suspense. The climax, with explosions, is depicted with a few models in a studio.It's really terrible writing, terrible directing and an absence of acting.

¨The Marines were formed 28 October 1664. On 29th April 1802 His Majesty King George III directed that they should ¨The Royal Marines ¨. At a critical stage of the war just Merchant ships operating from Bordeaux were seriously endangering the British Blockade . For political reasons saturation bombing was rejected . The Navy was unable to penetrate the defenses without air cover . The Royal Marines were given the job. Postmouth , England-March-1942¨.Based on historical events with screenplay by Bryan Forbes and Richard Maibaum from the story by George Kent , including technical advisers as Colonel Hasler and ex-Marine W.E. Sparks . The film starts when a Major of Marines is arrested by the patrol boat for canoeing in a restricted area . He is Major Stringer (Jose Ferrer) under orders to execute a dangerous mission. The captain Thompson (Trevor Howard) has been appointed as the administrative officer . The Major joined in a fit of boyish enthusiasm and the High Command put him in in charge of the unit , while the captain is a WWI veteran ; going to be awfully difficult to get used to taking orders from a young officer. The mission results to be the following : It seems German ships are running in and out of Bordeaux , getting past out blockade and bringing vital raw materials to the German war machine . The job is to get all the way up there , try to blow up those enemy ships in the docks , by means of cockleshell canoes , they'll be traveling at night and hiding in the day . The'll be dropped out somewhere outside the minefield , 75 miles to the target , should be able to make it in three or four nights of paddling . The team , a group of highly-trained volunteers (Peter Arne , Anthony Newley, Percy Herbert , Victor Madden , David Lodge , among others ) for hazardous service .This is an exciting movie about warlike fits dealing with the blowing up of German warships by an expert squadron of soldiers in cockleshell canoes . The picture contains thrills , action , suspense , and amusement when the training of the soldiers take place . First-class performances from Jose Ferrer as obstinate Major and Trevor Howard as second-in-command captain . Large plethora of secondary cast and new-comers actors as Percy Herbert, Anthony Newley , Peter Arne and Victor Maddern as stiff Sergeant Craig . Furthermore brief appearance of Christopher Lee as submarine commandant. Evocative cinematography in glimmer Colour by John Wilcox and Ted Moore , produced at Shepperton Studios , England , being one of the first English movies to be realized in Technicolor . Good musical score including patriotic tunes by John Addison and conducted by the usual Muir Mathieson with the London Symphony Orchestra. The producers -Irwing Allen and Albert R. Broccoli who subsequently would produce James Bond series- acknowledge the assistance given to them in the making of this film by ¨The Royal Marines¨ and other branches of the ¨Royal Navy¨. The motion picture is well played and directed by Jose Ferrer . Rating . Better than average, worthwhile watching .

The Fifties were Jose Ferrer's peak years as an actor and he was getting acclaim for all kinds of roles he was trying out. Ferrer has never been thought of as an action hero, but in a film in which he directed himself The Cockleshell Heroes, Ferrer is outstanding in a part that someone like Clint Eastwood would have been more identified with.This was one impossible mission given to the Royal Marines. I'm sure rowing crew at Oxford would have gotten one a starring birth on this squad. The idea here is to demolish German ships in the port of Bordeaux and render the harbor useless. The problem is that Bordeaux ain't on the coast, it's up the Gironde River.In an amphibious operation the idea is for a picked bunch of Royal Marines to row kayak like canoes up the river after having been landed by submarine at the coast under cover of darkness. The canoes are there to insure silence so that no unaccounted for motors are heard on the river. Then the Marines are to attach mines to the various ships and hopefully they will blow up and the Marines would escape inland with the help of the French Resistance.Sounds absolutely impossible, but it really did happen. The film takes us through the training and the mission and most of the Marines are killed. This was typical back in the day, get a known American star for a British production to insure international distribution. In Ferrer's case having one of the great speaking voices ever in film, he could be acceptably British for the audience.Ferrer the director got some great performances out of Ferrer the actor and the rest of his cast, particularly Trevor Howard as his second in command and administrative officer. Howard was the best in the cast, a tough man with a deep secret, he failed under fire just as World War I was ending and has a black mark on him. He gets a second chance 25 years later in another war. Also to be noted is David Lodge the young Royal Marine who goes AWOL to settle some trouble back home with an unfaithful wife in Beatrice Campbell.The film bears some resemblance to The Dirty Dozen and The Devil's Brigade, American productions from the next decade. But these Royal Marines weren't misfits made into a fighting force. They were some of the best of that generation who went on a mission impossible knowing that they most likely would not come back. And it's to them and the rest of the Royal Marines that this American dedicates this review to.

A romanticized and entertaining account of a very daring raid. These piratical exploits seem to suit something in the British psyche.Colonel 'Blondie' Haslar, the leader of the raid, became a well-known sailor after WW2. I was told that after discovering he had incurable cancer, he set sail alone for the Antarctic fully intending to die doing what he loved best. He was never seen again. Perhaps a reader could confirm this.You can read the report online in the Navy News of the December 9, 2002, of the death of Bill Sparks, the last survivor of the raid. There is a walking trail in France named after him, which follows the escape route he took through that country to neutral Spain.