Set in 1797, the film begins as the H.M.S. Defiant is ready to leave England after acquiring some new hands on a mission to protect a convoy of timber ships from the French. Captain Crawford is assigned a new first mate, Officer Scott-Padget, and gets permission from the Admiral to take along his eager twelve-year old son as a midshipman. Before they even leave port, the crew is planning a fleet-wide mutiny in secret and the leaders start to take names of those willing to join. Once out at sea, the Captain discovers that Scott-Padget is quite sadistic with his punishment and his training exercises. When the Captain negates part of the punishment that Scott-Padget promised a shipmate, Scott-Padget has the Captain's son beaten severely every day for trivial matters. The Captain, not wanting to show favoritism, can do only so much to prevent this. Later though, when they capture both a French merchant ship and a French battle ship, the Captain assigns his son and an officer to take the ships back to England, and thus gets is son out of Scott-Padget's grasp. However, things take a turn for the worse when the Defiant comes under attack and the Captain is wounded, leaving Scott-Padget in command. Scott-Padget manages a victory, and in the process captures Napoleon's advisor who has information of a planned attack by the French on the British. Still in command, Scott-Padget's cruelty continues and leads the crew to mutiny. The crew then plans to sail anywhere but Britain to avoid punishment, but the Captain warns them that if they do not deliver Napoleon's advisor to Britain, their country could fall to the French. The crew must then decide which is more important – their country or their lives.

Damn the Defiant! is a great naval war film filled with terrific performances, especially on the part of Guinness. The story has enough twists to keep your attention, as you never know what will happen next on the H.M.S. Defiant. It does get a bit confusing at times, especially if you're not up on your history, but it is well worth watching.

Picture:
Damn the Defiant! is presented in both 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and full frame. However, the print used for the transfer has quite a few significant defects. Grain is present to some degree throughout the film and gets worse near the end. Scratches, spots, and specks all appear, some more distracting than others. Colors in the film are occasionally faded, discolored, or too dark. There was also too much edge enhancement in quite a few parts of the film. In short, the print needed a lot more work; however, it is far from unwatchable.

Sound:
Damn the Defiant! is presented in Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono. I noticed that there was some distortion in the sound and some of the dialogue I found a bit hard to understand. For the most part though, the audio fares rather well for a film its age with no other problems than those listed above.

Extras:
Extras include: five vintage posters for the film; talent files for the director, Alec Guinness, and Dirk Bogarde; and brief notes about the film inside the booklet. Subtitles in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, and Thai are also included.

Summary:
If Damn the Defiant! had a better transfer, slightly improved audio, and a wider selection of extras, it would easily fit in the highly recommended category, as it is a terrific film. As it is though, the most I can recommend is a rental to those who haven't seen it, and to those that have, you might find it worth a purchase.