Seagulls Over Sorrento aka Crest of the Wave (1954)

(On Cable TV, March 2020) A plain description of Seagulls Over Sorrento sounds like a madlib gone weird: Here’s Gene Kelly playing a lieutenant in a techno-thriller set on a small Scottish Island about the development of better torpedoes in a black-and-white film adapted from a British play by an Australian writer. Um, okay? Part of this madness can be explained by the fact that MGM had to make movies in England during the 1950s as a way to spend funds that could not be repatriated home—and how the era’s filmmaking could compress an entire film’s production schedule in a few weeks in order to allow its stars to fly away to another project. This was even easier for a project like Seagulls Over Sorrento, which added only a few Hollywoodish enhancements to a stage-bound project. (Like many military movies, at least one character has to die in order for us to take this seriously.) Perhaps given the weirdness of the premise, the film had a weak box office upon release, and is a bit obscure today, especially when measured against Kelly’s other projects of the time. Still, Seagulls Over Sorrento is something all right—clearly not the kind of film that should be your first, second or third stop for either 1950s cinema or Gene Kelly’s filmography, but something like an intriguing find at the bottom of the barrel, fit to cause wonder and amusement as you explore how it came to be.