I've just watched The Gift Horse, a world war two film in black and white from 1952. I remember many titles of films from childhood which I never had the chance to see and so catch up with them now, and this is one of them. Based on a true incident where we made a swap with the Americans to obtain 50 old warships, this follows the exploits of one of these, commanded by the dependable Trevor Howard, who really carries the film, with a determined, but vulnerable performance, marvelous to watch. James Donald another actor known for these roles at the time, also has a major part, but is saddled with a side story which involves him romantically with Joan Rice, and consequently leaves him miscast. Robin Bailey is prominent and well cast I thought, as is the great Sid James, who runs a pub and there's a lovely scene where a fight breaks out in the pub and the camera ignores the guys fighting and goes to photographs on the wall of Sid in his boxing days, very novel. Lovely to see the wonderful Dora Bryan, and sadly I watched this only two days after she died at the age of 91. She would have been about 28 at the time. The film looks very dated and some of the scenes on the ship look like they were filmed in an old TV studio, but it's the acting that excels here, particularly Trevor Howard.
