Sea Fury (1958) watch online HD

Victor McLaglen's last feature film found him trying to romance Luciana Paluzzi. McLaglen's a salvage tug captain and he's going through an end life crisis romancing young Luciana Paluzzi who's young enough to be his granddaughter.

Seems that her father Roger Delgado, an innkeeper in a North Spain sea village, would like to get his daughter fixed up with a comfortable situation for both of them. He encourages her flirtations with McLaglen. But she's got eyes for Stanley Baker who's a member of McLaglen's crew.

What saves this film is the action sequences on the high seas, especially Stanley Baker risking life and limb to dump a steel drum of lethal sodium during a storm, on board a listing freighter. Reason enough to see this film. There's also a bit of rivalry between Baker and another member of McLaglen's crew, Robert Shaw.

Shaw and Baker both went on to solid careers as tough leading men. Baker never got quite the acclaim that Shaw did internationally, but he was good box office in Great Britain.

Roger Delgado was best known in the British TV series Doctor Who for originating the role of the Doctor's number one nemesis, the Master. Death in an automobile crash in 1973 cut short a very good career.

Watch it for the action sequences.

A tiny handful of people have had the adventurous life Victor McLaglen had. To give you an idea, his rich and rollicking autobiography was published near the *beginning* of his acting career, a career that would later give him a Best Actor Oscar and a Best Supporting Actor nomination almost two decades after *that*. Before becoming an actor, he managed to fight in both the Boer War and World War I, fight (in a different sense) freshly-crowned heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, play vaudeville, mine for gold, and serve as Provost Marshall for the city of Baghdad! McLaglen was neither a grandly handsome actor nor a great one (though he gave a few great performances, most notably the one that won him the Oscar, in John Ford's brilliant 1935 "The Informer.") He was big and broad, both in stature and in performance, and his most famous roles ("The Informer," "The Quiet Man," "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon," etc.) made use of both aspects. He lived to be 72, and every one of those years showed up on his face. His later films rarely gave him much of interest to do, and he seemed tired and passive in some of them.

Therefore, his very last film, "Sea Fury," came as a surprise to me. In this British film, made only a few months before McLaglen's death, he is actually at one corner of a love triangle and displays much of the roughneck quality that infused so much of his early work. In this British film, McLaglen's first in his native country since silent days, he plays a tugboat captain who is tempted by a young woman's mercenary father into falling in love with her. The father knows that such a husband for his daughter would not live long and would make her wealthy at his death (at least by the standards of her Spanish village). The captain knows he should not be so foolish as to hope for the love of a girl fifty years his junior, yet hearts and minds do not always think alike, and the captain's heart overrules his wisdom.

Lucianna Paluzzi, who would later make a bit of a splash as the bad Bond girl opposite Sean Connery in "Thunderball," is here a deliciously innocent yet wildly tempting young girl, and most of her scenes leave no doubt that any man with a heterosexual heartbeat would have trouble not falling for her. One who does is a sailor played by Stanley Baker, one of Britain's better leading men of the period, albeit one who did not rise to quite the worldwide fame of his contemporaries like Richard Burton and Richard Harris. Baker's sailor signs on as a seaman aboard McLaglen's tug, and trouble of course arises when he and the girl fall hard for each other.

What seems bound to become a rather typical love-triangle movie turns out not to be, due in part to the very age difference between McLaglen and the girl, something that (unlike in many Hollywood films) is not ignored but actually confronted in the drama. Also, the film is a wonderful slice of a life that is at once quite real and quite unfamiliar to most of us. The Spanish village where the sailors live while waiting on news of wrecks they can sail out to salvage, and life aboard the tugboats, are both given a most believable and interesting depiction. They're not mere locations but living, breathing unique situations that seem rooted in reality.

The final portion of the film is a terrifically exciting sequence aboard a wrecked ship in which the actors seem to be in almost as much danger as the characters they portray. The whole movie is much more exciting and affecting than I ever expected it to be, and it is a touching and quite fitting farewell to Victor McLaglen, one of the most remarkable figures in film history.

For a man who lived and tasted more of life before his movie career began in the late twenties than most actors, indeed most people will ever know, it is fitting to see Vic in his old form one last time. The film is peppered with references to his life both on and off stage. From the opening sequence with him barking orders and bodily shoving people aside, we see that though in his early seventies, he's still got enough for one last performance.

The scene where he pins a medal on Stanley Baker, and plays his trademark rough-an-tumble drunk is classic McLaglen. His half-hearted attempt at courting the lovely Luciana Paluzzi culminates in an amusing treat of a scene that ends with Paluzzi storming out of the captain's cabin and Victor picking himself up off the floor.

Later we find Vic's character Captain Bellew with Stanley Baker's Abel Hewson on the bridge, as Bellew describes an experience from his early days at sea, and declares that he's done a bit of everything in his time. He says it with an honest conviction because he is quite easily telling the truth about his own life.

In all, I rate it a great watch for anyone who admires the man's irrepressible zest for life and the adventurous tale of his winding course through it. One of the last great men of the Victorian Era takes his bow with this one.

Victor McLaglen, the captain of a tug boat service forms a misplaced affection for Luciana Paluzzi, her father (Delgado) happy to oblige for a significant dowry and ongoing prestige. Paluzzi, of course, at least thirty-something years McLaglen's junior, isn't so willing to be matrimonially arranged and finds mutual attraction with the newly hired mate, Stanley Baker. The ensuing tension creates friction between those loyal to the embattled skipper, and others swayed by Baker's courage and the prospect of a changing in the guard.

McLaglen's final film role is a great individual swansong, but he's a star among a galaxy of gas. Baker's character will draw parallels with that of "Hell Drivers" (another Endfield-Kruse collaboration), as the tough, uncompromising rogue who takes on the establishment for the common man, his highly principled stance diametrically opposed by the hard-line techniques employed by McLaglen. But the transition is by no means seamless, particularly with loyal mates (Shaw, being the most influential) opposing the vanguard. The action sequences are competent, but Paluzzi doesn't evoke enough depth to her characterisation, a role in which perhaps a Sophia Loren or Pier Angeli would have excelled.

Fair British supporting cast are merely spectators to the tepid love triangle and Endfield's direction is not as taut or narratively fluent as in "Hell Drivers" (the similarities with which are too obvious to deny and is possibly where "Sea Fury" suffers as a comparison). But for Baker's charisma and McLaglen's jealous-turn invoking equal amounts of scorn and sympathy accordingly, this would be a largely forgettable experience. A solid climax briefly elevates the picture, but not sufficiently to redeem the otherwise soap-operatic storyline from mediocre status. Fair, but far from memorable.

Not too bad, many weak details re nautical events. To West Coasters the main attraction is the tug "Sea Fury". She is one of a large class of US Army tugs of WW2, widely used by US and Canadian Towing Companies after the war.They were as a class known as Miki Mikis (Hawiian for "on time") after the progenitor built in the late 20's for the Hawiian inter-island pineapple trade. Very popular and successful vessels. All in all not a bad film , very entertaining if You haven't sailed on a tug although 5 stars for featuring one in a film. Good cast too.Scenes of Spanish ports and coastline are another plus. As are the scenes at sea both on board the Sea Fury, the interaction with the Dutch tug and even the sadly inaccurate salvage operation. Still, a fun show.

This film's sole claim to fame is as the last big screen appearance of vetern actor Victor McLaglen. His character, Bellew, is an aging tugboat captain working out of a Spanish port on the Bay of Biscay. His eye is taken - and who could blame him - by the beautiful young Josita (Lucianna Paluzzi). Her father - whom the value-system of her time and place tells her she must obey - wants her to encourage him. When she objects to the idea of marrying an old man he tells her that, because he's old, Bellew won't last long. When she inherits his wealth she can provide her father with a small pension, take the rest and go to live in Madrid or Barcelona and marry for love. Unsurprisingly Josita is more taken with Abel (Stanley Baker), a young sailor whom Bellew had taken under his wing. Much of the film is taken up with this unremarkable love/lust triangle. By far the best part is a well-done action sequence where the tugboat's crew try to salvage a ship carrying a dengerous cargo. A solid cast includes such guture stars as Barry Foster, Robert Shaw, Rupert Davies.

Firstly can I make the point that although this site shows Baker as top billed it is Mclaglen who was top billed and the name above the title.Mclaglen was an actor who was rarely capable of giving a restrained performance.He needed someone of the calibre of John Ford in getting him to be more restrained.Here he is rather odd because he lusts after a woman young enough to be his granddaughter.Difficult to know whether the director was serious about suggesting this romance.Anyway all the action is reserved for the climax which involves Stanley Baker.IThe end of a long career for Victor.

Victor McLaglen's last film finds the actor in fine form, even though he over-acts as usual, and at 97 minutes, this movie does tend to run just a little too long. But keep watching, as it does come to an absolutely stunning climax that is well worth waiting for. Admittedly, that forces viewers to sit through a fair amount of unnecessarily verbose dialogue, which I'm surprised was not trimmed by on again, off again editor, Arthur Stevens. (Stevens had a really bizarre movie career which started way back in 1931 when he edited a one-reel short contrasting humans with monkeys. He did not re-enter the film industry until 1952, when he edited a quota quickie, "The Stolen Plans"). On the other hand, Dermot Walsh is quite striking in his brief cameo, and Miss Luciana Paluzzi makes a delightfully pert and fulsome heroine. On yet another hand, I thought top-billed Stanley Baker no more than adequate. However, it was nice to see Robert Shaw, quietly menacing in a smallish role. The Spanish locations are also an asset and the music score is particularly striking thanks to a nice solo guitar played by Julian Bream.

Nice, sharp black and white photography of Cataluna, Spain. It provides a colorful background for this story of two sailors -- McLaglen and Baker -- competing for the affections of Luciana Paluzzi, which are well worth competing for.

McLaglen is the blustering skipper of a rescue tug that makes its living by salvaging ships that are in distress. It's a familiar role for him. He gets to booze it up a lot and throw things around and look broody when he's disappointed.

Paluzzi is a local senhorita in the Portugese port out of which McLaglen and has half dozen crewmen operate. Her father is a Macher and tries to arrange an affair between her and McLaglen. Her Dad is some nice guy, full of hypothetical imperatives. After all, he reasons, McLaglen is old and has never been married and when he kicks it, his money and his assets must go to his wife. How can you argue with that? Paluzzi is reluctantly drawn into his scheme. But then Stanley Baker arrives, handsome, young, virile, and applies for a job as a deck hand with McLaglen. He has his First Mate's certificate but he's hard up for a job. McLaglen strikes up a friendship with him and hires him.

Inevitably, Baker and Paluzzi fall for one another behind McLaglen's back. The dialog is unimpeachable but the logic behind the characters is a little murky. Here is Paluzzi, pretty and virginal, and after meeting Baker and chatting with him two or three times, she takes him to the top of a nearby mountain, teases him into making a move on her, then throws herself into his arms and murmurs, "Love me! Love me!" Well, this happens to me all the time, but I don't see Baker having such an effect on the luscious Paluzzi. When it comes to pheromones, you either have them or you don't -- and Baker don't.

Poor McLaglen. We know immediately that he's not going to get Paluzzi. If he did, what would he do with her? He was in his 70s when this was shot and he looks it. The comic/brutish face is still there but the eyes are puffy and the shoulders seem shrunk. His torso is bulky but shapeless and sagging. Baker is always outfitted in tight turtle necks and other glam devices.

Cy Enfield was the director. They should have given it to someone else. It's one of the few movies in which the direction is really so poor that it draws attention to itself. If you doubt it, just watch the scene in which Paluzzi is changing clothes behind a screen and McLaglen is trying to keep himself from peeping. It's played with complete sincerity. And there must be half a dozen cuts between garments dropping down Paluzzi's shapely calves and McLaglen doing his best to seem in an approach/avoidance conflict. Terribly done.

At the climax, Baker leaps aboard a listing ship in a storm. The ship's cargo includes metallic sodium, which is highly dangerous stuff. I won't describe it but the scene is quite well done and full of tension. It would have been nice, though, if instead of ordering, "Shoot the towline," McLaglen had given the more proper order to "shoot the messenger line," because that's what they do.

A nice supporting cast -- Barry Foster, Robert Shaw, et al -- make up for a not-unwatchable story of competition at sea and on the beach. It could have been better.

SEA FURY is a British slice of seafaring drama that sees Stanley Baker (a ubiquitous presence in British cinema of the 1950s) joining the crew of a tugboat that spends a lot of time searching for stricken vessels to claim the salvage rights to. Unfortunately, for the majority of the running time this plays out as a romantic melodrama, and as such it's occasionally turgid and rather long-winded. Baker falls for the voluptuous charms of Luciana Paluzzi (and who can blame him?) but salty sea-dog Victor McLaglen also has his sights on here.

Thankfully the film does pick up for a thoroughly suspenseful climax involving a cargo of dangerous chemicals on an abandoned ship in a storm, and Baker really comes into his own at this point; it's just a pity it takes so long to get to this point. Still, the film is worth watching if for no other reason to see an excellent supporting cast at play. Keep your eyes open for the likes of Robert Shaw, Francis De Wolff, Joe Robinson, Percy Herbert, Rupert Davies, Roger Delgado, Barry Foster, and Dermot Walsh, many of them appearing long before they became famous.