The Sea Chase

The Sea Chase
Directed by	John Farrow
Starring	John Wayne Lana Turner David Farrar Lyle Bettger
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	1955
Running time	117 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

The Sea Chase is a 1955 World War II drama film starring John Wayne and Lana Turner. It was directed by John Farrow and written by James Warner Bellah. The plot is basically a nautical cat and mouse game, with Wayne determined to get his German freighter home during the first few months of the war, all the while being chased by British and Australian naval ships.

Plot

The story loosely parallels (whether by design or coincidence) the historical account of the German freighter Erlangen (sometimes described as a "raider"). Under the captaincy of Alfred Grams, the freighter slipped out of Lyttelton Harbour (New Zealand) in 1939 on the very eve of war, so as to avoid internment. She then headed for the subantarctic Auckland Islands, where she successfully evaded two British naval craft searching for her, and re-stocked with food and wood (cutting down large swathes of the southern rata forest). The freighter then made a desperate and successful escape to Valparaíso, Chile, South America.

A reverse propaganda film, it portrays Wayne and Turner as innocent Germans (war refugees).

Captain Karl Erhlich (Wayne) is the master of the elderly German steam freighter ‘Ergenstrasse,’ in port at Sydney Australia on the eve of the Second World War. Erhlich is depicted as a patriot, once a career naval officer who lost his rank and position having fallen out of favour with the current regime and refusing to support the Nazi Party. As his ship prepares for sea (or to be interned if war is declared ) he meets with an old friend, British Commander Jeff Napier (Farrar) and his fiancé Elsa Keller (Turner).

Germany has invaded Poland, and war is imminent. As his ship prepares to slip away, Erhlich receives a visit from the German Consul-General, who asks him to take with him a spy to prevent his capture. It is only after the Ergenstrasse slips out of harbour in thick fog that Erhlich discovers the spy is in fact Keller.

Old, slow, short on coal, the Ergenstrasse is seen as easy prey by the Australian Navy, and by Napier in particular, who understandably holds a grudge. But Napier is the only man who does not underestimate Erhlich as the wily Captain leads his enemies on a wild goose chase across the Pacific Ocean, beginning with a run to the south to throw off pursuit, pausing for supplies at an unmanned rescue station on Auckland Island, and then stopping for wood at the fictitious Pom Pom Galli Atoll in mid Pacific, after an eventful passage that includes burning three of the ship’s lifeboats for fuel. (The island of Pom Pom Galli is mentioned again in the 1993 film La Classe américaine.)

Only after the ship arrives at Valparaiso in neutral Chile does Erhlich learn that his first officer, the pro-Nazi Kirchner (Bettger ) has murdered three marooned seamen during their visit to Auckland Island, a pointless act that makes he and his shipmates war criminals. He also encounters Napier, as his ship the Rockhampton has pursued him from New Zealand. Unable to reply to Napier’s accusations, Erhlich confronts Kirchner and forces him to sign an account of his actions in the ship’s log in the hope that he alone will take the blame for the murders.

Luck is with them as the Ergenstrasse, re-provisioned and fuelled slips away in the darkness; the British forces waiting for them have been called away in support of the cruisers facing the German Pocket Battleship Admiral Graf Spee at Montevideo, Uruguay. Napier requests a transfer to the British Naval patrols in the North Sea, believing that Erhlich must pass through the patrols in his attempt to reach Kiel.

For political reasons, German radio broadcasts a message from Lord Haw Haw that discloses the position of the Ergenstrasse as it passes Norway, thus giving up the ship and crew to the Royal Navy, and the waiting Napier, as his swifter passage home places the corvette now under his command in Erhlich’s path.

Cast

• John Wayne as Capt. Karl Ehrlich
• Lana Turner as Elsa Keller
• David Farrar as Cmd. Jeff Napier
• Lyle Bettger as Chief Officer Kirchner
• Tab Hunter as Cadet Wesser
• James Arness as Schlieter
• Richard Davalos as Cadet Walter Stemme (as Dick Davalos)
• John Qualen as Chief Engineer Schmitt
• Paul Fix as Max Heinz
• Lowell Gilmore as Capt. Evans
• Luis Van Rooten as Matz
• Alan Hale, Jr. as Wentz (billed as Alan Hale)
• Wilton Graff as Counsel General Hepke
• Peter Whitney as Bachman
• Claude Akins as Winkler (billed as Claude Akin)
• Royal Canadian Navy frigate HMCS New Glasgow FFE315 as HMS Rockhampton

See also

• 1955 in film
• List of American films of 1955
• List of drama films
• List of World War II films

External links

• The Sea Chase at the Internet Movie Database