For Those in Peril (1944 film)

Plot

Aspiring RAF pilot Pilot Officer Rawlings (Ralph Michael) fails to make the grade in training, and grudgingly accepts the alternative of joining the crew of Launch 183, an air-sea rescue craft skippered by Flight Lieutenant Murray (David Farrar). Rawlings is initially resentful and bored by the apparent mundanity and lack of excitement of the life, until the vessel is called on to rescue the crew of an RAF bomber shot down in mid-Channel.

Having accomplished the rescue, the boat runs into an enemy minefield during its return and is attacked by German air and sea forces. When Murray is killed, Rawlings has to take charge and bring the vessel safely back.

Production

For Those in Peril was designed to publicise a then little-known unit of the British Royal Air Force, the Air Sea Rescue Unit which was set up in 1941 with the aim of saving those in distress at sea, particularly airmen who had been shot down or otherwise forced to ditch their craft in the water. In common with a number of other war-related films made by Ealing at this time the plotline was subservient to the propaganda message, so name actors were generally not used, and genuine sailors featured in the action scenes.

Location filming took place mainly in the area around the port of Newhaven in Sussex, with the English Channel sequences being shot off the Sussex coast. Crichton, on his first directorial assignment, later recalled: "(My) first picture ... was a propaganda picture called For Those in Peril where we rushed around the Channel in high speed motorboats, boats which were used for picking up crashed airmen and so on. It's a horrifying thing to say, but it was very exciting."

Principal photography took place in mid-1943 at the Ealing studios and on location. With the active participation of the Admiralty and Royal Navy in filming, Royal Navy Patrol Service armed trawlers and other auxiliary craft, Royal Navy coastal craft (motor launches and torpedo boats) located at HMS Aggressive, Shoreham, were made available. A Royal Air Force Supermarine Walrus air-sea rescue aircraft of No. 28 Air Sea Rescue unit and a Douglas DB-7 Boston bomber was also featured.

Reception

For Those in Peril was one of the few British productions that appeared in 1944–1945. Its semi-documentary style suited its role as a propaganda film. Film historian George Perry considered this film to be the closest Charles Crichton ever got to "documentary realism during his long Ealing career."