Alternate Best Actor 1953: Jack Hawkins in The Cruel Sea

Jack Hawkins did not receive an Oscar nomination, despite receiving a BAFTA nomination, for portraying LT. Commander George Ericson in The Cruel Sea. 

The Cruel Sea takes a realistic approach of a single crew going through World War II. 

If that role sounds primed for Jack Hawkins, the man required to be in every epic during a certain period, you would be correct. This very much is mostly in his more expected wheelhouse just in the lead role, although just barely as the film very much focuses on several members of the crew to get a wider scope of how this life impacts the men. Hawkins provides his presence to the role of a British officer with the innate strength you’d want, and fitting to the most seasoned man called to deck. Hawkins often must fulfill those needs with delivery of his orders with that regal voice of his and with a quiet confidence about a man who knows what he’s doing. That is the set-up however that isn’t all there is to the film or his portrayal of Ericson, though Hawkins certainly does well in filling that Naval uniform so to speak. The film though is trying to be realistic so this isn’t at all about the glory of the navy, and I would say Hawkins is good because even when he’s in his most official capacity he’s not emphasizing any “rah rah” quality, just a man being professional. 

The film gets much darker when the men come across British men in the water but also know there is a German U-boat below the surface. Hawkins is good in this scene where his eyes do capture essentially the cruel but needed calculation of the man as he understands the gravity of his choice yet then proceeds to calmly order that the boat proceed to attack. When he’s called a murderer, even though Ericson had no choice lest their ship also be destroyed, Hawkins’s reaction takes that as truth even as he continues but still maintaining a veneer of indifference to maintain himself as the proper commander. We have a followup scene where Ericson confides his first officer his true heartbeat over the scene, and I’d say Hawkins is good in the scene, but I can’t help but admit I think he’s better in a short, yet very similar scene, in the end of The Bridge on the River Kwai where he also must justify his sacrificial action. There I truly felt the emotion, here I think Hawkins presents it well, certainly delivers on the needs of the moment, but his performance didn’t impact me to the degree of his later work. 

We follow the ship as it has its own destruction where Hawkins again has a good scene where he is recovered with the few remaining crew delivering genuine fear in his expression and conveying the severity of the situation. We follow that even with a personal note of the unfaithfulness of his wife where Hawkins delivers an effective bit of quiet exasperation, where he does care but has been through too much to care all that deeply. Hawkins shows instead the focus of the man now on his job where we have his pivotal scene of becoming obsessed that there is a German U-Boat even though all signs suggest otherwise. Hawkins is good in this scene in managing to portray this dancing on the line in his intensity between determination and paranoia. Hawkins plays around on the note effectively in the build up before he is proven to be right and once again saves the day in less than typically heroic circumstances. Hawkins gives a good performance here, but I will say, along with some of his other leading turns I’ve seen. There is something missing. Don’t get me wrong, he’s good in those other turns, he’s good here, but the weird thing is he weirdly feels like he has a greater presence…when in supporting roles. And it might just be that strange intangible of what makes a star a star, as Hawkins is good, has a strong presence, yet as a leading man, he’s just not quite as gripping as when he comes in and out of a film.