It is December 1940, the Soviets were still allied with the Germans, France had fallen, the Americans had yet to even dip a toe in the Atlantic and Great Britain stood alone against the Nazi threat. The evacuation of the BEF from Dunkirk was still fresh in the minds of the British people, but on the plus side, we had already won The Battle of Britain, but British filmmakers had already realised that a movie camera was just as an effective weapon of war as any tank, bomb, ship or rifle.

The British film Industry was kept busy throughout the war years churning out morale boosting propaganda at a rate of knots. These wonderful films took many forms from espionage dramas, military spectacles and for a nation that desperately wanted something to laugh it in such dark times, we still had some comedy.

One such movie was Sailor's Three from Ealing Studios, a film designed to showcase the talents of a then up and coming comic named Tommy Trinder. Trinder plays one of a trio of Able Seamen of the Royal Navy with Claude Hulbert (Jack's Brother), and Michael Wilding making up the other two. Their ship HMS Ferocious is scouring the Atlantic Ocean looking for a German pocket Battleship The Ludendorff with orders to sink her on sight.

After four months at sea, they put into a South American port to refuel and the ship's complement get shore leave. After imbibing a little too much on South American 'hospitality' our trio overstay their pass and in an effort to get back to their ship, they arrange a lift with the local harbour pilot to take them to the Ferocious.

However, they are too drunk to notice that the ship the harbour pilot has steered them to is the elusive Ludendorff. (How drunk the Ludendorff's officer of the watch and lookouts must have been not to notice the approaching boat with three British sailors aboard is never explained).

Trapped on board an enemy ship, it is not too long before they're captured, but being British, they have no intention of sitting around as prisoners waiting for the war to end and hatch a plan along with a friendly Austrian crew member of the Ludendorff, (James Hayter), to take the entire ship from the German officers and crew and sail her to England, hopefully before their own ship sees her and opens fire.

Not surprisingly for a wartime film, made at a time when the true atrocities of the Third Reich were still not widely known, the Germans are portrayed here with little dignity and are shown to be incompetent buffoon's and comic foils and they do a great job trying to convince us that it is entirely possible for a whole crew of an enemy battleship to be subdued by just three British Sailors and those are the odds we Brits like.

Trinder is also given a couple of catchy songs to jolly us along and whilst Wilding, (by far the most accomplished 'actor' of the three leads), is given little to do, Hulbert is an absolute scream.

Not perfect in anyway, but a very enjoyable bit of fluff that must have left British wartime audiences of the time reassured that the best Navy in the world really did rule the waves.

Enjoy!

Tommy Trinder the popular music hall and radio star of the thirties and forties leads the cast of this typical British war time froth which pokes fun at the enemy in a light knock about lark with a few songs thrown in. The movie is of coarse complete nonsense but represents what was showing down at the Ritz during the early war period.