Despite his limited involvement in the actual making of The Silver Fleet, Michael Powell later called it one of his favorite films. Newly available on a fine Region 1 DVD from VCI Entertainment, The Silver Fleet is a topflight propagandistic war drama about a Dutch shipyard owner (Ralph Richardson) who pretends to collaborate with the Nazis when they take over his facility to build U-boats. Richardson secretly plans acts of sabotage, hoping to engineer the hijacking of one U-boat to England and the scuttling of another with as many German officers on board as possible.
The film's title refers to the Spanish armada captured by legendary Dutch naval hero Piet Hein in 1628. Hein intercepted 16 ships off the coast of Cuba and took their vast holdings of silver and gold. A famous Dutch folksong carries the refrain "Piet Hein, Piet Hein / He sank the Silver Fleet." That song is heard in this film, and it is what inspires Richardson to carry out his plan. He becomes in effect a modern-day Piet Hein (with shades of the Scarlet Pimpernel), with no one realizing that the man they detest as a Nazi sympathizer is in fact plotting heroics against the Nazis. He sends written messages to his shipyard workers instructing them how to carry out his plan, signed "Piet Hein" or "PH," thus rousing their patriotism and confidence. Not even Richardson's family is aware of what he is doing, and his wife grows to loathe him for his perceived Nazi collaboration, while his son suffers taunts and bullies at school. In one of the very charming scenes between father and son, the son insists that they toast "Piet Hein" with a glass of milk, not realizing it's his father.
Richardson's wife is played by the British actress Googie Withers, who impressed Powell greatly. He later wrote of her: "At last people realized what I had been saying all along, that her beauty had an erotic quality, strange and provocative. It was delightful to learn that she had a keen sense of humor. She had a deep chuckle when she was amused that was irresistible. There had been a lot of pressure from the Rank publicity people that she should change her crazy name now that she was a dramatic actress. 'Of course not,' said Googie. 'Googie means crazy. I'll always be Googie, and I'll always be crazy.' There was no answer to that."
But it was another actress in The Silver Fleet who had an even more profound effect on Powell: Kathleen Byron. She appears in one short but key scene, as a schoolteacher relating to her attentive students the story of Piet Hein and leading them in the folk song. Powell did not cast her in the part; the film's director, Vernon Sewell did. But when he saw the rushes, Powell was blown away by Byron, whom he described as having "a dreamy voice and great eyes like a lynx.... She had the look of a zealot, a martyr. I think that her great strength was in the power of her imagination.... It was a good, straightforward performance without any frills or mannerisms." Powell would go on to cast her in many of his own films as director, including I Know Where I'm Going! (1945) and Black Narcissus (1947). In a 1981 interview with William Everson, Powell said that perhaps the reason Byron was more effective in his movies than in other films she made in the same period was because "perhaps no director fell in love with her again. It's very important for a director to fall in love with his leading lady." Powell may have been speaking metaphorically and semi-jokingly, but he actually did literally fall in love with Byron.
Richardson delivers a warm, finely shaded performance, underplaying masterfully and portraying the inner-turmoil-with-a-cool-exterior effect that must have been quite challenging to put across. Also notable in the cast is Esmond Knight, another Archers stock company regular who had recently served in the Royal Navy. He'd been completely blinded in a naval battle that led to the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck. Arriving back in England, he learned to read in Braille, wrote a book of his experiences, and returned to acting. He plays the main Gestapo officer here, a role that despite being more of a caricature than a full-bodied character is much fun to take in. Watching him on screen, one would never realize that he was totally blind -- quite a remarkable achievement.
Director Vernon Sewell had also served in the Navy for the past two years. He'd previously worked with Powell and Pressburger as a sound technician, but as Powell later wrote, Sewell was "at home in all departments" on a film set. Powell added that Sewell was "the most competent man I have ever known," and Powell was not surprised when The Silver Fleet turned out so well.
Other notable Archers technicians in the crew are production designer Alfred Junge and cameraman Erwin Hillier, both of whom would work on many more Archers classics including the ethereal I Know Where I'm Going!. Hillier's night photography in The Silver Fleet is especially lovely and striking.
All these elements add up to make The Silver Fleet a wonderful discovery of a little-known British wartime film, a brisk drama laced with wry humor. Its very moving yet unsentimental finale underscores the tone of the film as a whole and conjures the winning British attitude of getting on with it without any nonsense and not looking back. It may have been designed as wartime propaganda, but the message still resonates. VCI deserves a pat on the back for continuing to put out fine British dramas like this one for the first time in the American DVD market.
For more information about The Silver Fleet, visit VCI Entertainment. To order The Silver Fleet, go to TCM Shopping.
by Jeremy Arnold
