Morning Departure

Morning Departure (1950)

THRILLING SEA DRAMA!

The crew of a submarine is trapped on the sea floor when it sinks. How can they be rescued before they run out of air?

Date of release
1950-02-21
TMDB
6.9 / 10 (20)
Runtime
1h 42m
Genres
Drama
Director
Roy Ward Baker

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Budget: £127.5K

Morning Departure is a 1950 British naval drama film about life aboard a sunken submarine, directed by Roy Ward Baker, and starring John Mills and Richard Attenborough. It was written by W. E. C. Fairchild based on the 1940 stage play of the same name by Kenneth Woollard, which had also been shown as a live TV play by the BBC in 1946 and 1948.

Production

In the play, the captain's name is Stanford, but for the film it was changed to Armstrong. Most other characters retained their names in the film version, although the film also has additional characters, due to the insertion of flashback scenes and scenes from the rescue operation on the surface.

Almost the entire budget was provided by the National Film Finance Corporation. It was shot at Denham Studios with sets designed by the art director Alex Vetchinsky.

HMS Tiptoe was used for the external submarine shots. The Maidstone was also used.

The role played by Nigel Patrick was originally offered to Peter Finch and James Donald but neither was available. Kenneth More has one of his first film roles.

Roy Ward Baker said "I was very proud of that film and still am. It was an immense success in its day and that's how I came to go to Hollywood in 1952, because the Americans had seen that film."

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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