Sons of the Sea (1939 film)

Sons of the Sea is a 1939 British colour drama film directed by Maurice Elvey and starring Leslie Banks, Kay Walsh, Mackenzie Ward and Cecil Parker.

Plot
In Britain in 1939, the head of Dartmouth Naval College is murdered. His successor, Captain Hyde, believes that he himself was in fact the intended target of the assassination. He soon begins to realise that both British and foreign intelligence agents are at work. He enlists the help of his son, a reluctant sea cadet, to smoke them out.

Cast

 * Leslie Banks as Captain Hyde
 * Kay Walsh as Alison Devar
 * Mackenzie Ward as Newton Hulls
 * Cecil Parker as Commander Herbert
 * Simon Lack as Philip Hyde
 * Ellen Pollock as Margaret Hulls
 * Peter Shaw as John Strepte
 * Nigel Stock as Rudd
 * Kynaston Reeves as Professor Devar
 * Charles Eaton as Commander-in-Chief

Production
Sons of the Sea was filmed during the summer of 1939, just before the outbreak of the Second World War, something explored in the themes of the film.The film's credits claim the film was "Made with full Admiralty co-operation".

It is the only feature film to be shot using the Dufaycolor process, with a limited colour palette. Since restoration, it has been shown on BBC television and more recently on Talking Pictures TV.

Reception
The film premiered in London on 11 March 1940, at the then recently opened Cinephone cinema at 241 Oxford Street, with the attendance of the main star, Leslie Banks.

Today's Cinema's reviewer commented that "With its topically appealing title, its surge of espionage incident, its stirring angles of filial devotion and its panoramic backgrounds of cadets on parade performing this or that manoeuvre, the development has all the essentials which make for popular success."