The whole enterprise is so po-faced that it's difficult not to laugh. The character's a sailor so he must pull faces like Popeye. Richard Burton in an early role shows he didn't need to wait until his declining years to be pompous. There are some pleasures to be had apart from laughing at a rotten failure. The production design is impressive but it only shows up the poverty of script, direction and acting.
Script adapt .
One of the most fondly remembered films of the war seems a little cosy now, but it does examine the Home Front realities of the war at a time when you'd imagine most folk would prefer to ignore them. Star David Niven licks the recruits into shape in a patriotic morale booster. The life and times of bomber pilots through the war. One of the all-time great films, this was voted best film of the war by Daily Mail readers in 1945. It's certainly gives the picture of the war the way people want to remember it.