Dreadnought Movies

[Dan Kappes]

Since there have been movies about Midway, Pearl Harbor, and the Titanic, does anyone know if there have been any movies about the dreadnought battleships of World War I?

And has there been a movie about the Battle of Jutland? If not, do you think a new movie about it would do good at the box office?

 

[Tim Aldrich]

"Here Comes the Navy" stars the USS Arizona and also James Cagney.

 

[Seumas]

Jutland would make for a good TV docu-drama. It's time the myth of Admiral David Beatty was sunk and the reputation of the unfairly maligned Admiral John Jellicoe restored.

There is one film involving not the battleships but the battlecruisers of WW1. "The Battles of Coronel and the Falkland Islands" made in 1927. You can buy it on DVD, the BFI, recently restored it, and it may be available online somewhere.

As the title suggests it's about the first two naval engagements of note in WW1. Now a word of warning, the film is unashamedly pro-British, pro-Empire and rather triumphalist in all honesty. On the plus side, the German's are shown great respect for their expert seamanship and great bravery in both battles. We also see the guns in action, inside the engine rooms and also a good display of the various different methods of signalling.

The filmmakers had full co-operation from the Royal Navy and the ships that "starred" are

HMS Invincible - HMS Barham
HMS Inflexible - HMS Malaya
HMS Good Hope - HMS Cardiff
HMS Monmouth - HMS Concord
HMS Glasgow - HMS Conquest
SMS Scharnhorst - HMS Coventry
SMS Gneisnau - HMS Ceres

Here's the trailer for the restored version if you are intersted

 

[Robert T. Paige]

"Here Comes the Navy" stars the USS Arizona and also James Cagney.

It also has scenes of USS Macon airship.
The movie was made in 1934 .....Also Gloria Stuart - 63 years before "Old Rose" of "Titanic" !

And some of USNRTC Boot Camp San Diego in 1934.
Happily the "Historic Area" of the Recruit Training Center has been preserved as "Liberty Station".
You might be surprised to find a Five Guys Hamburger Restaurant and a Verizon Telephone Office in your old barracks today. !

 

[Dan Kappes]

I've noticed in Star Wars: The Last Jedi a class of the star war ships are called "dreadnoughts". I wonder if this is a deliberate reference to the World War I battleships.

Dreadnought

These things are fleet killers.Poe Dameron, to Leia Organa Dreadnoughts were massive, powerful capital ships. Under the Anaxes War College System, they were classified as ships with a length of 5,000 meters or larger.[2] Dreadnoughts included the Providence-class[3] and the Subjugator-class used...

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