THE BATTLE OF THE RIVER PLATE (Le Bataille du Rio de la plate).

Grande-Bretagne. Réal., prod., scén. : Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger. Cie de prod. : The Archers, J. Arthur Rank. Prod. associé : Sydney Streeter. Asst. réal. : Charles Orme. Dir. photo. Christopher Chellis (Vista Vision), (Technicolor). Cameraman Austin Dempster. Mont. : Reginald Mills. Déc. Arthur Lawson. Dir. art. assodié : Donald Picton. Cons. art. Hein Heinckroth. Mus. : Brian Easdale. Dir. mus. : Frederick Lewis. Son. : C.C. Stevens, Gordon K. McCallum.

Int. : John Gregson (Capitaine Bell), Anthony Quayle (Commodore Harwood), Peter Finch (Capitaine Langsdorff), Ian Hunter (Capitaine Woodhouse), Jack Gwillim (Capitaine Parry), Bernard Lee (Capitaine Dove), Lionel Murton (Mike Fowler), Anthony Bushell (Mr Millington-Drake), Peter Illing (Dr Guani), Michael Gopodliffe (Capitaine Mc Dall), Patrick McNee (Lt Cmdr Medley), John Chandos (Dr Langmann), Douglas Wilmer (M. Desmoulins), William Squire (Ray Martin), Roger Delgado (Capitaine Varela), Andrew Cruickshank (Capitaine Stubs), Christopher Lee (Manola), Edward Atienza (Pop), April Olrich (Dolores).

Durée 119 mn. Prés. : 29 octobre. GB sort. : 24 décembre. GB dist. Jarfid (Rank). US sort. : novembre 1957 (106 mri). Titre US Pursuit of the Graf Spee. Royal Film Performance 1956. Sort. France : 27 mars 1957.

Lors de la dernière guerre, le Graf Spee, cuirassé de poche allemand, et Langsdorff, son capitaine, semblent invincibles. Trois croiseurs britanniques le traquent. Touché, le Graf Spee se réfugie à Montevidéo, port neutre. A la suite de tractations diplomatiques, on le somme de quitter l'Uruguay. Croyant qu'une puissante flotte britannique l'attend à la sortie de la baie du Rio de la Plata, il se saborde.

One of last works produced under The Archers' banner, Powell and Pressburger's The Battle of the River Plate (released in the U.S. as Pursuit of the Graf Spee) is an expensive 1950s war epic which recounts in quasi-documentary fashion a well-known, war-of-nerves encounter between three British cruisers and the German battleship Graf Spee off Montevideo, Uruguay in 1939. Peter Finch is the sympathetic, leather-jacketed German captain, "a fittingly dark romantic subject for Powell and Pressburger" (Richard Combs, Film Comment); Anthony Quayle and John Gregson are his British opponents; while Christopher Lee has a memorable cameo as a Latin nightclub owner.

"Is there anything left to be discovered [in the P&P canon]? Well, consider The Battle of the River Plate. . . This is naked Powell and Pressburger: an awkward, unsatisfying, intriguing thing that reveals very clearly what they could and couldn't do, and yet even in its weaknesses opens up odd avenues to the cinematic future. . . [It may] fuel the next stage of the Powell and Pressburger rediscovery program" (Combs). "[The Battle of the River Plate] remains a stirring and moving finale to the war films which originally forged their relationship" (Ian Christie).