The Sea Chase

The Sea Chase is a 1955 World War II drama film starring John Wayne and Lana Turner, and featuring David Farrar, Lyle Bettger, and Tab Hunter. It was directed by John Farrow from a screenplay by James Warner Bellah and John Twist based on the novel of the same name by Andrew Geer. The plot is a nautical cat and mouse adventure, with Wayne determined to get his freighter home to Germany during the opening months of World War II, chased relentlessly across the Pacific then Atlantic oceans by the Australian and then British navies. The film was shot in CinemaScope and WarnerColor. Plot Captain Karl Ehrlich (John Wayne) is the master of the aging German steam freighter Ergenstrasse, home port Hamburg, docked at Sydney, Australia, on the eve of the Second World War. Ehrlich is a former German Navy officer who lost his command after refusing to support the Nazi regime. As his ship prepares for sea to avoid internment, Erlich meets with an old friend, British Royal Navy Commander Jeff Napier (David Farrar), plus Napier's German fiancée Elsa Keller (Lana Turner). Ehrlich knows Elsa has a dubious past and tries to break them up by reminding Elsa of her past trysts, to which she chuckles and smiles. With war imminent because Germany has invaded Poland, the Ergenstrasse prepares to slip away. The German Consul-General asks Ehrlich to transport an Abwehr spy who risks capture. It is only leaving Sydney, in thick fog during night, that Ehrlich discovers the spy is Elsa, who had seduced Napier and drawn out military information from him. Elsa is cynically dismissive of Ehrlich's personal integrity. Ehrlich's chief officer, the pro-Nazi Kirchner (Lyle Bettger), who is also with German intelligence, soon makes advances on Elsa. Erlich intervenes and stymies Kirchner’s overtures towards Elsa.