The Sea Wolves is essentially an old man’s film. With the exception of Moore (who plays the part to some degree as a World War Two incarnation of James Bond) these characters and actors are pushing retirement age. Yet it is truly an old man’s world, for these men are given a second chance to prove their worth and their importance in shaping world events, the film becoming perhaps a manifestation of Britain’s own fears of post-colonial irrelevance as a world power. It is thus a film about men who fear that they have been made redundant and get the chance to show that this is not the case. In so doing it is a film about the challenge to age. Although in such a context it is not surprising to learn who the spy actually is, the film manages to be an examination of the self-satisfaction and even self-definition that old soldiers get from participation in war. In that sense, the film maintains the sense of World War Two as, for the colonial British, in many respects the last great adventure – the time for old men to get together against a common enemy and prove their worth on the field. Hence, the film is rousing, patriotic and deliberately downplays any real suffering or pain until the final stages, where the vainglorious quest for significance has its personal consequences. Even when these old men face more than they expected, they prove capable, doing what is needed of them and in the process, validating their lives.
The film endorses this notion of the wartime mission as a personal validation and thus is far removed from sentiments of the time in which the film was released, better encapsulated perhaps by such films as The Deer Hunter. Quite expectedly thus, the film is deliberately old-fashioned in its approach to narrative and film style, eschewing the cynicism of, say, The Wild Geese (which seems a rather more complex movie in comparison) in favour of a decidedly populist escapist tale for presumably nostalgic viewers. Even critics of the time were quick to add that this film was perfect for those who claim that they don’t make ‘em like they used to. However, although it is pleasingly evocative of the films of decades before, The Sea Wolves cannot match the memory of The Guns of Navarone, the film it perhaps aspires to most of all. Nevertheless, it is as an historical curiosity rather than a classic wartime adventure that The Sea Wolves survives. It falls short of its ambitions to recapture a lost approach to genre and seems the effort of McLaglen and his scripter Reginald Rose to offer a counterpoint to the cynicism behind such flag-waiving patriotism that was found so pervasively in their analysis of the mercenarial action in The Wild Geese. Refuting cynicism through evoking nostalgia, The Sea Wolves is an American movie recreation of the last glory days of British colonialism and thus something of an anomaly. read more