The Battle of the River Plate is a 1956 film by the British-based director-writer team of Powell and Pressburger. In the United States the film was retitled Pursuit of the Graf Spee.
The film portrays the Battle of the River Plate, a naval battle of 1939, between a Royal Navy force of three cruisers (HMS Exeter, HMS Ajax and HMS Achilles ) and the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee.
Unlike many British war movies of its time, The Battle of the River Plate treats the Germans as honourable opponents rather than as cardboard cut-out "Huns". This was a recurrent theme in Powell and Pressburger's films, including The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.
Set during the early years of World War II, the War in the Atlantic. The Royal Navy was fighting a desperate battle to keep the convoy routes open to keep the British Isles supplied. One great danger was the surface raiders, huge cruisers called "pocket battleships" that slipped out of German waters just before war was declared. The "Bismarck", The "Scharnhorst", The "Gneissau" and The "Graf Spee" were supplied by tanker & could strike anywhere. This is the story of how 3 lightly armed cruisers with only 6 and 8 inch guns boldly took on a powerful pocket battleship armed with 11 inch guns. They should have been blown out of the water before they could fire a single shot but ... Written by Steve Crook
