Yangtze incident
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Yangtze incident |
| Original title | Yangtse Incident: The Story of HMS Amethyst |
| Country of production | Great Britain |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1957 |
| length | 113 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Michael Anderson |
| script | Eric Ambler |
| production | John Wilcox |
| music | Leighton Lucas |
| camera | Gordon Dines |
| cut | Basil Warren |
| occupation | |
| |
Yangtse incident ( British original title Yangtse Incident: The Story of HMS Amethyst , US title Battle Hell , German alternative title Helden zur See ) is a British war film from 1957, which is set in 1949 in the final phase of the Chinese Civil War ; The real background to the plot was the amethyst affair . The non-fiction book Yangtse Incident by Lawrence Earl (1915-2005) from 1950 served as a reference . The film was shown at the 1957 Cannes International Film Festival . The West German premiere took place on September 6, 1957.
action
April 1949, Yangtze River . In the midst of the Chinese Civil War, the British frigate HMS Amethyst transports supplies for the British embassy in Nanking . Suddenly the ship is shot at by Red Chinese land batteries and stranded on a sandbank . Large parts of the crew fall or are wounded. The British manage to get Lieutenant Captain John Kerans, the British naval attaché in Nanking, to the ship that replaces the fallen commander .
After an attempt by HMS Consort to tow the frigate fails, Kerans decides to bring the amethyst through at night and at high tide without a pilot . But Colonel Peng, the political officer of the unit of the People's Liberation Army that is besieging the ship, demands an apology for the incident, otherwise the frigate will not be released. Nor does he want to release two injured British prisoners. Kerans manages to get the prisoners free while preparations for a breakthrough are underway. When a merchant ship takes the same course that night, the Amethyst joins them to find their way through the shallows of the river. When the People's Liberation Army finally noticed the frigate and opened fire, the merchant ship in particular was hit. After Kerans has thwarted a ship lock with more luck than brains, the frigate comes under Chinese fire again. Eventually she passes Woosung and wins the free ocean, where she is greeted by HMS Concord .
Production backgrounds
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John Kerans was the technical advisor for the filming, and the frigate Amethyst , which had already been decommissioned , was used as a prop for a time. The destroyer HMS Teazer was used as a prop for both HMS Concord and HMS Consort . The filming took place in Suffolk on the rivers Orwell and Stour .
Historical background
The Amethyst Affair was a diplomatic incident in which other British warships were involved in addition to the Amethyst . In total, a good 100 British seamen were killed. The Amethyst was the last Western warship to leave China. In China, the affair ended a gunboat policy of more than a hundred years by Western powers, whose center had always been the Yangtze.
Lore
The film was edited in the original version on both VHS and DVD . The German dubbed version was broadcast on public television in the 1960s or 1970s.
Web links
- Yangtze Incident in the Internet Movie Database (English)