Malta Story

Very much a weekend afternoon film now, almost 50 years after it was made, this film gives an accurate portrayal of the wartime events which led to Malta's being awarded the George Cross. The footage of the air and sea battles is fascinating, but the acting is sadly wooden.

Jack Hawkins turns in his usual competent performance, but Alec Guiness is very bland. Flora Robson is an unlikely Maltese mother, symbolising the suffering of the island people. The other credited actresses, Muriel Pavlow and Renee Asherson, appear almost catatonic, and the two love affairs are utterly unconvincing.

A lot of the entertainment lies in spotting well-known faces in their younger days! No surprise to see Victor Maddern and Sam Kydd (whinging, but getting the job done!), Gordon Jackson (uncredited), a very young Rosalie Crutchley and an (almost) unrecognisable Nigel Stock!

Watch this to learn about Malta's wartime history, but choose another film if you want to see these famous names acting with some passion!

The plight of Malta, just 58 miles from the Italians... with German air superiority and the Luftwaffe making 3000 attacks on the island... is shown well here in this 1953 movie. The filmmakers got access to real spitfires for the movie, and it was shot in Malta on location, 8 years after the war so there is still plenty of bombed out landscapes for some realistic visuals. While many movies use footage from the war, and splice it into the movie shot footage, it often doesn't match. Malta Story does a really good job of it matching. There are model shots of course, but they are pretty good for the time. And there are plenty of real shots of the spitfires, and plane wrecks. Overall, the gloom of a city under sieges, and the Brits realising they are in trouble, comes across quite well. On the down side, the sub plot of the maltese spy is a bit underexplored, and Sir Alec Guiness (who is a great actor) seems out of place and a bit distant. The rest of the cast, including Jack Hawkins, are great. Definitely worth a look for war film buffs.

Someone else unfortunately used the title, location, location, location, in his film review. It's not only the plot of the movie, it's the history of Malta.

Malta located south of Sicily and right in the middle of that Mediterranean bottleneck between Sicily and Tunisia has had the misfortune by geography to be smack in the middle of supply and trade routes since ancient times. That made it desirable real estate. Malta's been occupied by every conqueror operating in that area, most recently the British during World War II.

And at that time that island with its air and naval base was doing a lot of damage to Erwin Rommel's supply route in North Africa. With unbelievable courage the British garrison held on for over two years and was never really out of harm's way until the Allies took Sicily.

Lots of black and white combat footage used and together with the performances of the male leads, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, and Anthony Steel the film has a nice documentary feel. Guinness who plays so many quirky type characters on the screen is for once a very straightforward lead as Peter Ross aerial reconnaissance photographer. He has a romance going with one of the locals and her mother is played by Flora Robson.

There is an interesting subplot there in which Flora Robson's son is taken prisoner as a spy for the Italians and sentenced to be executed as a spy. He tells his British captors that he is in fact a Maltese patriot and that they are the occupiers and it's their occupation that is bringing death and destruction to his people. Not that he wasn't right. The Maltese finally do have their independence now.

A film that is a great tribute to the heroism of the British forces on the island of Malta.

Well what can one say. A good effort in trying to show the heroism of the Island, of the heroic Maltese who endured so much, and of all the heroic allied servicemen within an extremely limited financial budget by the look of it. Guinness can't cut being a 'love lead' and was embarrassingly uncomfortable in the role, despite his undoubted great acting talents in other more suitable roles. Steel was a man of the time, but let's just say politely not of now. Jack Hawkins coasts through with his pained Cruel Sea look and carries the film. The aerial models win the wooden acting awards just from the actors, and I half expected to see Sooty and Sweep pulling the strings on the models just behind the scenes. The supposed German ability to have 6 ME109s on your tail wherever you are only just a few seconds after you transmit a radio message makes one's mind boggle and this farcical "Fact" is made the supposedly end focal point of the film; but leaving such laughable crapola fact of the highest order aside means that I shall say no more on the subject, and it still leaves a good film!

Having said all that well done to all for trying to portray this great story. I've been to Malta and give my thanks and admiration to a wonderful steadfast courageous people who helped save our butts.

Having just read "Tobruk" by Chester Wilmot, a journalist who spent time in the Tobruk siege and reported diligently about it, this piece informed me of another similar siege that I was unaware of. The use of archive footage is fascinating, mixed in with a simple story of love that feels lighter and without the moralising heaviness and embarrassing "post modern" pretensions of many modern day films ... especially war films. Very much a product of it's time ... they really don't make them like this anymore. Some of it feels like a War time moral raising film. I even thought it was made in the war until I found out the 1953 date. But memories were still strong in those days of course, so there is a flavour of a story burning to be told to the world before times move on.