In March 1943, in the World War II, the Germans use the neutral harbor of the Portuguese colony of Mormugoa to transmit information to a U-Boat about the allied ships to sink them in international waters. In Calcutta, the British Intelligence assigns Colonel Lewis Pugh (Gregory Peck) and Captain Gavin Stewart (Roger Moore) to spy in Goa and they discover that there are three German vessels anchored in the area and the famous spy Trompeta (Wolf Kahler) is based in Goa. They kidnap Trompeta to interrogate him but Lewis accidentally kills the spy after fighting with him in the runaway car. Meanwhile Gavin has one night stand with the gorgeous and elegant Mrs. Cromwell (Barbara Kellerman),who is the partner of Trompeta. They fail in their mission, but Lewis and Gavin convince their chief to use the veterans from Calcutta Light Horse led by the retired Colonel W.H. Grice (David Niven) to travel to Goa on board of the old ship Phoebe, pretending to be drunken businessmen on holiday. They prepare to destroy the Ehrenfels and the two other Nazi radio ships and get the German secret codes under the command of Lewis. Meanwhile Gavin on shore has a love affair Mrs. Cromwell and prepares the diversion to facilitate the mission of Lewis and his men.

"The Sea Wolves" is an entertaining adventure apparently based on a true but incredible story. The use of retired military in the operation in a neutral zone seems to be too fantastic and romantic to be true and does not make sense why risky the operation exposing old men and not real soldiers. Would it make any difference to England after the sinking of twelve allied vessels? The unknown Barbara Kellerman is really a pretty woman and tailored for the role of a seductive spy. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Espionagem em Goa" ("Spionage in Goa")

The Sea Wolves is based on a true incident in which a bunch of middle aged and more than middle aged old soldiers from the British Raj in India got together and blew up three German freighters interned in the Port of Goa on the western coast of India.

The British had a delicate diplomatic problem. For over 300 years Goa and some surrounding suburb was Portugese territory and Portugal under Salazar was neutral in World War II. Made it a place for a whole lot of intrigue. The Nazis had a transmitter on one of those ships that was relaying information about allied shipping and the U-boats were cleaning up.

You might ask why it was the Nazis and not the Japanese. Very simply the Japanese never developed any real submarine capability just as the Nazis disdained developing aircraft carriers. Had both done so, World War II might have turned out differently, at least that's a pet theory of mine.

Gregory Peck and Roger Moore get the job of doing something about the spying and the transmitter. Roger Moore goes into Goa and does a little counterespionage. He certainly as James Bond has the right credentials. He even has a fling with the head Nazi who is a woman played by the very beautiful Barbara Kellerman.

Peck trains a force of former members of the Indian army now retired and waiting for the Raj to end as everyone but Winston Churchill knew it would. David Niven, Trevor Howard, Allan Cuthbertson, Patrick MacNee are some of men employed to go into Goa harbor and do away with those ships.

These are patriotic men whose country is in her biggest crisis and feel helpless in not being able to be of service. It's that way when you've spent your life in the military. When the opportunity knocks, they kick down the door.

In a recent biography of David Niven it's mentioned that Niven enjoyed being reunited with his Guns of Navarone co-star Gregory Peck and another guy who he had worked with, Trevor Howard. But the film was done in actual location in India and it was sometimes 140 degrees fahrenheit. It was pretty stressful and it exacerbated the symptoms of an undetected Lou Gehrig's disease that eventually took David Niven from us.

I remember in the early sixties Goa was eventually just taken over by India. The Portugese had a lease there just as they did at Macao and the British did in Hong Kong. But the Indians just weren't that patient.

The Sea Wolves is a good and entertaining film about a little known and very minor operation during World War II.

While it is a long way from a terrible film, 'The Sea Wolves' was a disappointment considering the talented cast and that the story could have been a really good one if executed well.

Starting with the good things about it, the best asset of 'The Sea Wolves' is the climax, which is sheer rousing excitement and the most riveting 'The Sea Wolves' gets. The locations also are quite nice and evoke a sense of atmosphere, the most professional the film looks by quite some margin. The direction has occasional verve, particularly towards in the climax and the build up to it.

A couple of the performances are good. Best of the bunch is David Niven, who brings understated dignity to his role, while Patrick MacNee has fun with his and Barbara Kellerman is a gorgeously sensual but appropriately dangerous femme fatale.

On the other hand, Gregory Peck (so brilliant in the likes of 'Roman Holiday' and 'To Kill a Mockingbird') is robotic and sleepwalks through his role. Roger Moore both over-compensates and slums it, trying too hard to be suave and such but coming over as cheesy and Trevor Howard's screen time is too short with a character that's severely underwritten and the dialogue awkward (a waste).

Visually, only the locations impress. The photography, like most of the direction, is pedestrian and routine, and also looking like it would be out of date even in the late 70s-early 80s. The costumes, hairstyles and make-up mostly look cheap and noticeably anachronistic to the period.

Can't say any better news about the music. The score doesn't fit at all and always at odds tonally, often setting a completely different mood to the storytelling with constant crying out for a darker edge. Even Matt Monro's marvellous singing can't stop the song (not a particularly good song to begin with) feeling so out of place and similarly ill-suited to the mood and the subject of the story.

Dialogue is long-winded and stilted and the story only comes to life in the climax. The rest is dull and severely lacking in thrills or suspense, not helped by the unnecessary spy subplots which drags the film down and convolutes it as well.

Overall, while the climax excites, the locations are nice and a few performances are good, the rest of 'The Sea Wolves' just didn't engage me. 4/10 Bethany Cox