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See the darkly glamorous spy boarding her submarine in
high-heel shoes, marvel at the handsome young flag lieutenant
as he undertakes a mission on which depends... something or
other, most important. Here be the plans of the new torpedo,
microfilmed and hidden in the toothpaste, to be handed over
at a midnight rendezvous on an uncharted atoll. Here too be
doomsday scenarios: nuclear fleets clashing in WW3 or 4, science-fiction
dreams and nightmares in which warships travel through time
and monsters come clambering out of their deep sea lairs.
Usually, these are 'accidental' naval pictures; the same story
with only minor adjustments could easily be transposed (and
probably has been) to outer space, the Wild West and so on.
But here and there a little naval interest creeps in around
the edges.
(We have omitted many Hollywood movies - dating especially
from the 1930s - which are ostensibly navy-related but which
on closer inspection turn out to be primarily cops and robbers
thrillers or love stories. The proximity of Hollywood to the
port of San Diego - an interesting, picturesque location -
ensured that ships and sailors figured, often more or less
incidentally, in numerous productions.)
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| The African Queen (GB, 1951, 105 mins) |
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| German East Africa, 1914: a spinster
missionary and a drunken riverboat captain, thrown together
by the outbreak of WW1, resolve to sink a German gunboat
patrolling a strategic lake. With Humphrey Bogart, Katharine
Hepburn, Robert Morley. Dir John Huston |
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| Attack on the Iron Coast (GB, 1969,
89 mins) |
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| Commandos attack a German naval base.
With Lloyd Bridges, Andrew Keir, Sue Lloyd. Dir Paul Wendkos |
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| The Battle (aka Thunder in the East/Hara-Kiri/La
Bataille) (GB/France, 1934, 85 mins) |
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| The naval hero is involved in espionage,
adultery and military disgrace during the Russia/Japanese
war of 1905; shot partly aboard the French battleship
Jean Bart. With Charles Boyer, Merle Oberon, John Loder.
Dir Nicolas Farkas |
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| Battle of the Coral Sea (US, 1959, 80
mins) |
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| Submarine commander with vital information
is captured by the Japanese but escapes in time to defeat
the enemy in the title battle. With Cliff Robertson, Gia
Scala, Teru Shimada. Dir Paul Wendkos |
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| The Bedford Incident (US, 1965, 102
mins) |
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| The Bedford, a US destroyer, harasses
a Russian sub; a deadly game of brinkmanship ensues. With
Richard Widmark, Sidney Poitier, Eric Portman. Dir James
B Harris |
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| Convoy (US, 1927, 90 mins) |
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| Silent melodrama involving two brothers,
a spy ring and a climax in which the British and American
fleets defeat the Germans in 'the battle of Kiel Harbour'.
With Lowell Sherman, William Collier, Dorothy Mackaill.
Dir Joseph C Boyle |
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| The Final Countdown (US, 1980, 104 mins) |
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| Sci-fi story in which the carrier
USS Nimitz (playing herself) passes through a time-warp
and appears off Pearl Harbour just before the Japanese
attack. With Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen, Katharine Ross.
Dir Don Taylor |
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| The Final War (aka Sekai Daisenso) (Japan,
1962, 110 mins) |
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| Series of accidents and misunderstandings
result in nuclear confrontation between American and Russian
fleets, and the end of the world. With Frankie Sakai,
Nobuko Otowa. Dir Shue Matsubayashi |
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| The Flag Lieutenant (GB, 1926, 90 mins) |
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| Adaptation of a popular play of the
time, in which the hero overcomes all odds, saves the
day, etc. With Henry Edwards, William Oldland, Fred Raynham.
Dir Maurice Elvey |
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| Forever England (aka Born for Glory/Brown
on Resolution) (GB, 1935, 80 mins) |
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| WW1: Able Seaman Brown, alone on a
rocky Mediterranean island, snipes at an anchored German
warship, delaying her until the arrival of the British
fleet. From the novel by CS Forester. With John Mills,
Barry MacKay, Betty Balfour. Dir Walter Forde |
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| FP1 Doesn't Answer (aka FP1 antwortet
nicht/Secrets of FP1) (GB/Germany, 1933, 115 mins) |
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| Futuristic fantasy about the building
of a giant mid-Atlantic platform to serve as a fuelling
stop. With Conrad Veidt, Jill Esmind, Leslie Fenton. Dir
Karl Hartle |
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| Freedom of the Seas (GB, 1934, 74 mins) |
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| A down-trodden clerk joins the navy
in WW1, where he outwits a gang of spies and sinks a U-boat.
With Clifford Mollison, HF Maltby, Wendy Barrie. Dir Marcel
Varnel |
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| Frogman Spy (aka Mizar) (Italy, 1953,
90 mins) |
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| The exploits of glamorous Mizar, underwater
Italian spy - salvaging secret codes from a sunken warship
and mining a key British cargo ship. With Dawn Addams,
Franco Silva, Paolo Stoppa. Dir Francesco De Robertis
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| Full Fathom Five (US, 1990, 82 mins)
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| A Russian nuclear sub is seized by
renegades and trains its missiles on Houston, Texas. With
Michael Moriarty, Maria Rangel, Michael Cavanaugh. Dir
Carl Franklin |
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| Further Adventures of the Flag Lieutenant
(GB, 1927, 90 mins) |
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| Being further adventures of the Flag
Lt. (See above). With Henry Edwards, Isabel Jeans, Lyn
Harding. Dir WP Kellino |
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| Hellboats (GB, 1969, 95 mins) |
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| E-boat commander given secret mission
to destroy strategic German arsenal. With James Franciscus,
Ronald Allen, Elizabeth Shepherd. Dir Paul Wendkos |
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| Hell's Cargo (aka Dangerous Cargo) (GB,
1939, 82 mins) |
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| British, French and Russian navies
in pursuit of a tanker carrying poison gas. With Robert
Newton, Walter Rilla, Kim Peacock. Dir Harold Huth |
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| Ice Station Zebra (US, 1968, 148 mins) |
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| US sub is dispatched on a mysterious
mission to the North Pole; an Alistair Maclean yarn. With
Rock Hudson, Patrick McGoohan, Ernest Borgnine. Dir John
Sturges |
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| Lieutenant Daring, RN (GB, 1935, 85
mins) |
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| Lt. Daring in action against pirates
in the China Sea. With Hugh Williams, Martin Walker, Geraldine
Fitzgerald. Dir Reginald Denham |
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| Luck of the Navy (GB, 1938, 73 mins)
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| A navy commander has his secret orders
stolen and sets off in pursuit. With Geoffrey Toone, Kenneth
Kent, Judy Kelly. Dir Norman Lee |
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| Mare Nostrum (US/France, 1926, 100
mins) |
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| A combination of Mata Hari spy story
and revenge drama, as a Spanish sailing skipper scours
the Mediterranean for the German sub which drowned his
son. Locations include Toulon and Villefranche; the sub
is the Paul Rodier, a German boat seized by the French
at the end ofWW1. With Alice Terry, Alex Nova, Antonio
Moreno. dir Rex Ingram |
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| The Monster That Challenged the World
(US, 1957, 83 mins) |
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| Monster molluscs menace mankind; a
US navy research station at Salton Sea, California soon
puts paid to them. With Tim Holt, Audrey Dalton, Hans
Conried. Dir Arnold Laven |
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| Morituri (aka The Saboteur Code Name
Morituri) (US, 1965, 123 mins |
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| Struggle for control of a German cargo
ship in WW2. With Marlon Brando, Yul Brynner, Janet Margolin.
Dir Bernhard Wicki |
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| Murder in the Fleet (US, 1935, 70 mins) |
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| The captain of a US cruiser investigates
a murder aboard his ship. With Robert Taylor, Jean Parker,
Ted Healey. Dir Edward Sedgwick |
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| Murphy's War (GB, 1971, 108 mins) |
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| Sole survivor of a torpedoed merchantman
reaches shore (Venezuela) and encounters the sub which
sank his ship. With Peter O'Toole, Sian Phillips, Philippe
Noiret. Dir Peter Yates |
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| Navy SEALS (US, 1990, 113 mins) |
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| US navy commandos put
paid to Arab terrorists. With Charlie Sheen, Michael Bien,
Rick Rossovich. Dir Lewis Teague |
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| Navy vs. the Night Monsters (US, 1966,
90 mins) |
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| Horror (?) film in which
the night monsters appear to be a bunch of marauding,
man-eating, err... trees. With Anthony Eisley, Mamie Van
Doren, Bill Gray. Dir Michael Hoey |
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| Neutral Port (GB,1940, 92 mins) |
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| Torpedoed cargo skipper
steals replacement vessel from German shipping anchored
in a neutral port. With Will Fyffe, Leslie Banks, Phyllis
Calvert. dir Marcel Varnel |
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| On the Beach (US, 1959, 133 mins) |
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| Post-WW3 story, in which
the remnants of mankind, including the crew of a US sub,
gather in Australia as the radiation inexorably spreads.
With Gregory Peck, Anthony Perkins, Ava Gardner. Dir Stanley
Kramer |
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| Operation Pacific (US, 1951, 111 mins) |
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| The love life, with military
asides, of a sub commander in WW2. With John Wayne, Patricia
Neal, Ward Bond. Dir George Waggner |
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| Our Fighting Navy (aka Torpedoed!)
(GB, 1937, 75 mins) |
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| British cruiser goes in
pursuit of ship manned by South American revolutionaries
who have kidnapped the British consul's daughter. With
Robert Douglas, Hazel Terry, HB Warner. Dir Norman Walker |
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| Out of the Depths (US, 1945, 71 mins) |
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| Submariners thwart a plan
by Japanese kamikaze pilots to crash their planes on the
USS Missouri during signing of the surrender document.
With Jim Bannon, Ross Hunter, Ken Curtis Dir Ross Lederman |
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| The Philadelphia Experiment (US, 1984,
102 mins) |
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| Sailor in WW2 tumbles
through a time warp into 1984. With Michael Pare, Nancy
Allen, Eric Christmas. Dir Stewart Raffill |
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| Return From the Sea (US, 1954, 80 mins) |
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| Korean war story: a bosun's
mate finds romance in the brief respite between patrols.
With Neville Brand, Jan Sterling, Paul Langton. Dir Lesley
Selander |
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| The Riddle of the Sands (GB, 1979,
102 mins) |
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| Adaptation of pre-WW1
spy novel (by Erskine Childers, executed for treason during
the Irish emergency, 1922) in which a yachtsman discovers
a German plan to invade England. With Simon MacCorkindale,
Michael York, Jenny Agutter. Dir Tony Maylam |
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| The Sand Pebbles (US, 1966, 179 mins) |
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| The adventures of the US gunboat San
Pablo, patrolling the Yangtze River in 1926. With Steve
McQueen, Richard Attenborough, Richard Crenna. Dir Robert
Wise |
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| The Sea Chase (US, 1955, 117 mins) |
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| A German merchant ship escapes from
Sydney harbour on the outbreak of WW2, with a Nazi spy
on board and a British destroyer on its trail. With John
Wayne, Lana Turner, David Farrar. Dir John Farrow |
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| The Sea Wolves (GB, 1980, 120 mins) |
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| A bunch of over-age expatriates set
out to destroy German shipping in Goa harbour. With Gregory
Peck, Roger Moore, David Niven. Dir Andrew V McLaglen |
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| The Secret of Two Oceans (USSR, 1957,
180 mins) |
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| The captain of Soviet submarine Pioneer
is ordered to find and destroy the (American) organisation
which is sinking ocean liners. Made by the Georgian republic
of the USSR; original title not known. With S Stolyarov,
I Vladimirov. Dir K Pipinashivili |
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| The Ship That Died of Shame (aka PT
Raiders) (GB, 1955, 91 mins) |
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| Motor Gun Boat 1087 serves with distinction
during the war, but in peacetime is put to criminal use
- whereupon the vessel turns on its crew. From the fable
by Nicholas Monsarrat. With Richard Attenborough, George
Baker, Bill Owen. Dir Basil Dearden |
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| Shout at the Devil (GB, 1976, 144 mins) |
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| WW1 adventure tale about a scheme
to blow up a German battle cruiser off Mozambique. With
Lee Marvin, Roger Moore, Barbara Parkins. Dir Peter Hunt |
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| The Silver Fleet (GB, 1943, 87 mins) |
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| Drama of the Dutch resistance movement,
set in a shipyard building submarines for the Nazis. With
Ralph Richardson, Googie Withers, Esmond Knight. Dir Vernon
Sewell/Gordon Wellesley |
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| Single-handed (aka Sailor of the King)
(GB, 1953, 84 mins) |
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| Remake of Forever England (see above),
up-dated to WW2; filmed on Malta. With Jeffrey Hunter,
Michael Rennie, Wendy Hiller. Dir Roy Boulting |
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| Sons of the Sea (GB, 1939, 82 mins) |
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| Naval adventure involving secret minefields,
amnesia, a master spy, etc. With Leslie Banks, Kay Walsh,
Simon Lack. Dir Maurice Elvey |
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| The Spy in Black (aka U-Boat 29) (GB,
1939, 82 mins) |
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| WW1: a German spy arrives in the Orkneys.
With Conrad Veidt, Valerie Hobson, Sebastian Shaw. Dir
Michael Powell |
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| Submarine Raider (US, 1942, 65 mins) |
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| American yachtswoman with news of
impending attack on Pearl Harbour is pursued by the Japanese
and finds refuge on an American sub (with a broken transmitter)
With Marguerite Chapman, John Howard, Bruce Bennett. Dir
Lew Landers |
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| Submarine Seahawk (US, 1958, 83 mins) |
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| Sub captain is ordered to locate a
secret Japanese task force. With John Bentley, Brett Halsey,
Steve Mitchell. Dir SG Bennet |
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| Suicide Fleet (US, 1931, 87 mins) |
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| WW1 tale of secret missions, impersonation,
etc. Partly shot aboard US sub Argonaut and the destroyer
Preble. With Bill Boyd, Robert Armstrong, James Gleason.
Dir Albert Rogell |
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| Thunder Afloat (US, 1939, 95 mins) |
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| WW1: the US navy in action against
German subs off the New England coast. With Wallace Beery,
Chester Morris, Virginia Grey. Dir George B Seitz |
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| Torpedo Zone (aka La Grande Speranza)
(Italy, 1954, 91 mins) |
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| Sentimental tale of survivors from
torpedoed Allied shipping spending Christmas on an Italian
submarine. With Renato Baldini, Folco Lulli, Lois Maxwell.
Dir Duilio Coletti |
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| Under Siege (US, 1992, 102 mins) |
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| International terrorists hijack nuclear
missiles aboard USS Missouri. With Steven Seagal, Tommy
Lee Jones, Gary Busey. Dir Andrew Davis |
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| Underwater Warrior (US, 1958, 91 mins) |
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| Korean war story: underwater demolitions
expert is assigned to destroy a prototype jet which has
crashed into the sea. With Dan Dailey, Claire Kelly, James
Gregory. Dir Andrew Marton |
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| White Ensign (GB, 1934, 84 mins |
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| Captain of a British cruiser involved
in South American revolution. With Anthony Kimmins, Ballard
Berkeley, Anthony Ireland. Dir John Hunt |
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