The British War Collection [5 Discs] [DVD]

Ealing Studios was an independent film production company based in Great Britain which is best remembered for two things -- a series of clever and understated comedies and a handful of powerful and emotionally honest war pictures. The Ealing War Collection features five outstanding movies about men at war from the studio's vaults. This set includes The Cruel Sea, in which Jack Hawkins plays a naval officer who has come to doubt his ability to command; Went the Day Well?, concerning a small British community fending off an attack by German troops; The Colditz Story, starring John Mills as a soldier who masterminds a mass escape from a German prison camp; The Dam Busters, with Michael Redgrave as the inventor of the "bouncing bombs" which helped win World War II for the Allied Forces; and The Ship That Died of Shame, a fantasy tale in which Richard Attenborough and his cohorts buy a ship on which they served during the war to use in an illegal business, which cases the vessel to revolt against such indignity.