Yangtse Incident: The Story of H.M.S. Amethyst

In 1949, during the Chinese civil war, the British warship Amethyst comes under fire on the Yangtze and runs aground. Part of the crew is killed, the ship is stranded for weeks and negotiations lead nowhere. In the end her captain attempts to run the river at night, without lights. The film is not interested in battle. It is interested in waiting: most of it is days spent in heat, short of food and without news. The escape comes only in the final section, and that section is genuinely tense. The form is realist war storytelling: black and white, shipboard scenes, radio traffic. Its most notable production fact is that the real Amethyst appears in it; the ship was still in service after the incident and was used again for the river sequences. Michael Anderson directed. The film drew large audiences in Britain and was among the most watched domestic productions of its year. Richard Todd plays the captain and William Hartnell a petty officer. Hartnell would become the first Doctor Who a few years later. Who it is for: viewers who like naval and war films drawn from real events. Who it is not for: anyone curious about the Chinese side. The film is told entirely from the British view and the other side is barely seen.