Going Dutch

A bit of cinema history yesterday with a viewing of 1943's The Silver Fleet. In many ways it is just another Second World War propaganda film, showing us how evil the Nazis were and how it was the duty of all upstanding citizens to fight for their country.

Set in a Dutch ship-yard in newly-occupied Holland, it stars Ralph Richardson as the yard owner: a man who all his fellow-countrymen think is a complete Quisling but who is earning the trust of the Nazis in order to complete a heroic act of resistance. The first part of the film, at least, was inspired by a true story: a German U-boat was hijacked by a Dutch crew and gifted to the English navy. The film was seen as an opportunity to refuel patriotism in the face of a seemingly interminable war and almost unbearable civilian hardship.

In cinema history it's best known for being the first film produced by Powell & Pressberger in their now-famous production company The Archers; P&P have a strong claim to being the strongest film-makers that Britain has produced. As an interesting aside, one of the leading cast members (Esmond Knight, who plays the most egregiously evil Nazi) was completely blind as a result of war service, but this fact is not obvious at all during the film.

More interestingly from my perspective, the film's principal location shoots were in my evil home town of King's Lynn, whose vaguely Dutchiform architecture is reminiscent of The Netherlands. It's rather a sobering sight to see the Trinity Guildhall turned into Nazi Headquarters.

Local folklore, incidentally, is that the Dutch architectural influence was as a result of the mass influx of Dutch engineers in the early seventeenth century, to drain the marshy Fenlands and realign the main rivers in these here parts. Dutch gables and facades appear in abundance, but some modern critics doubt there is any connection. Still, it works for the film.