Basil Dearden

The Ship That Died of Shame Basil Dearden

1950s British film drama based on the novel by Nicholas Monsarrat. The crew of the Royal Navy's much-decorated Motor Gun Boat 1087 find the going much tougher following the end of the Second World War. Now unemployed, the men buy their old ship back from a scrap yard and use her to smuggle black market goods across the English Channel.

As the crew's fortunes prosper they become more daring, but when they start carrying money and guns for London's criminal gangs, the old 1087 herself sems to be protesting against their activities. The mood on board becomes blacker still when a convicted child murderer is given refuge on ship, setting off a disastrous chain of events. Richard Attenborough, George Baker, Bill Owen and Virginia McKenna co-star.