The Cockleshell Heroes (1955)

Captain Thompson: Corporal Stevens.
[Stevens steps forward and salutes, and Thompson returns the salute]
Captain Thompson: Do you usually let your men slouch about in that fashion?
Marine Stevens: No, sir. We've just finished an exercise, and...
Captain Thompson: I'm not interested in what you've finished.

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Major Stringer: All right, Thompson, let's clear the air a little. Ever since I came here, you've been giving me a hard time. Now just what the hell has been eating you?
Captain Thompson: It's just that I'm a professional Marine. I don't like temporary officers. I don't like volunteers for hazardous service. I don't like musical-comedy operations designed to win the Victoria Cross for somebody. I suppose I just don't like your ears.

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Major Stringer: Well, now, it's time for me to listen to you for a change.
Captain Thompson: What do you mean by that?
Major Stringer: I mean, let me have it. What did I do wrong?
Captain Thompson: You did everything wrong.

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Trevor Munn in his Trevor Howard biography, 'Trevor Howard: The Man and His Films', states: "What Trevor didn't say was that José Ferrer directed and José Ferrer starred and in the process didn't make himself too popular with Irving Allen. At the time Allen said, 'When Ferrer finished the film, we found that he had made a tour de force for José Ferrer. He seems to have forgotten about the rest of the cast. I've been doing close-ups of Trevor Howard that Joe forgot to do.'"
Though the operation in the film is known as Operation Cockleshell, the real name of the operation to which the film was based on was Operation Frankton. It was conducted by twelve men of the Royal Marines Boom Patrol Detachment in December 1942.
First film from the British Warwick production company that was filmed in Cinemascope.
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