The Battle Of The River Plate (film)
The Battle of the River Plate is a 1956 British war film by director-writer team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, starring John Gregson, Anthony Quayle and Peter Finch. In the United States the film was retitled Pursuit of the Graf Spee.
The film portrays the Battle of the River Plate, a naval battle of 1939, between a Royal Navy force of three cruisers and the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee. Unlike many British war movies of its time, The Battle of the River Plate treats the German sailors as honourable opponents rather than as cardboard cut-out "Huns" and Nazis. This was a recurrent theme in Powell and Pressburger's films, such as The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.
Read more about The Battle Of The River Plate (film): Plot, Historical Details, Cast, Production, Release and Reception, Awards and Honours, Book
Famous quotes containing the words battle and/or river:
“In a time of war the nation is always of one mind, eager to hear something good of themselves and ill of the enemy. At this time the task of news-writers is easy, they have nothing to do but to tell that a battle is expected, and afterwards that a battle has been fought, in which we and our friends, whether conquering or conquered, did all, and our enemies did nothing.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
“There are knives that glitter like altars
In a dark church
Where they bring the cripple and the imbecile
To be healed.
There’s a woden block where bones are broken,
Scraped clean—a river dried to its bed”
—Charles Simic (b. 1938)