The 1940s, during the Battle of the Atlantic. The Merchant Navy is vital to provide supplies to Britain, with two-thirds of food being imported. They are also a lifeline for delivering military equipment. However, this makes them a particular target for German U-boats. Twenty-two men are adrift in a lifeboat after their ship had been torpedoed. They are able to signal their position using Morse Code, and this is picked up by a ship which changes course to rescue them. Unfortunately a U-boat also picks up the signal...

The World War II years were a rich period for British cinema, and British documentary in particular.  If fiction features were made to attract and entertain an audience, documentaries were intended to instruct and educate...and, hopefully, entertain them too. With the outbreak of hostilities, there was an additional imperative, to support the War effort, to increase morale...propaganda if you will. Yet that War effort enabled several talents to flourish, to make films that stand with the best, whatever the motives involved in making them. Such filmmakers include Humphrey Jennings (1907-1950), Harry Watt (1906-1987) and others. Some, like Jennings, only made documentaries – and, in his case, only one of them at feature length – while others, like Watt, also made fiction features.

Another was Patrick Douglas Selmes Jackson, usually billed as Pat Jackson (1916-2011). He joined the GPO Film Unit on his seventeenth birthday. He followed the hallowed path from teaboy to director, working on the short film Night Mail (1936, directed by Watt and Basil Wright) and that's Jackson you hear on the soundtrack reciting W.H. Auden's narrative poem. He began to direct two years later, and with Jennings and Watt directed the short documentary The First Days (1939), a portrait of Britain in the early days of the War, the "Phoney War".

Western Approaches (released as The Raider in the USA) was Jackson's first feature film, and took three years to make. The powers that be had noticed the success of Target for To-Night (1941), directed by Watt, and decided what that film had done for the Air Force could be done for the Navy. In fact, Watt was the original choice to make Western Approaches. In addition, they would go one up on that film and other feature documentaries and shoot in Technicolor. That was a rarity, in fact a luxury, as there were few Technicolor cameras available in Britain, and indeed just five three-strip dramatic features – The Great Mr Handel, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Henry V, This Happy Breed and Blithe Spirit – were made in the country during wartime. Director of Photography was one of the masters of colour cinematography, Jack Cardiff. That wasn't the original plan: the film was to have been shot by C.M. (Cyril Montague) Pennington-Richards, who had made amongst others Jennings's Fires Were Started (1943), with Cardiff training him in colour cinematography, but in the event Pennington-Richards was unable to make the film and Cardiff took over. For those who like to know these things, the film was shot using Technicolor monopack (single-strip but three-layer) film for the location work, in New York as well as at sea, while the interiors, made at Pinewood Studios, used the larger and more unwieldy three-strip Technicolor. This was no doubt for logistic reasons, no doubt due to the distinctly uncomfortable open-sea shooting with no doubt much seasickness. Also, the three-strip Technicolor cameras were not allowed to leave coastal waters, meaning that monopack had to be used.

The film is a documentary, but it does stretch the definition of that term, given that it is a scripted recreation. None of the men (and a few women) we see on screen were actors and were serving naval personnel...and Jackson as a gun crew officer. Jackson didn't require his cast to learn lines to the letter, and allowed them to improvise. So if you wish you could call the film a drama using non-professional actors. They aren't necessarily playing themselves, or even versions of themselves. The German U-boat crew, for example, were played by Dutch sailors. While the film is set in the North Atlantic, the seaborne footage was actually shot in the Irish Sea, no doubt for reasons of security, lest some passing U-boat sink them. As it was, these scenes took six months to shoot.

Taken as a war film, the film is a compelling narrative, cutting between the men in the lifeboat, the crew of the merchant vessel, and the U-boat, with the German characters speaking German, much of it unsubtitled. You can see a few things which have since become war-movie clichés, though they weren't at the time: if someone reminisces about his home life and expresses a desire to get home in time for his wedding anniversary, you know he won't live to see the end title card. While the film could easily have been made in black and white, the Technicolor does add a lot, with the greys and blues of the surging waters as much a character in the film as the people and the boats.

Western Approaches was released in December 1944 in the UK, following a little trouble with the BBFC, who asked for the language to be toned down – though it's mild indeed compared to what the sailors might have said if cameras hadn't been on them. The film was successful at the UK box office. In the USA, it had further trouble due to language with the Production Code Administration, even to the extent of a reported ban, but not five years later it was shown on American television, though whether those showings were censored or not is unknown. It received its British television premiere in 1953 on BBC Television (then the only UK television channel), likely unedited for more robust British sensitivities, though Cardiff's camerawork would have been beamed across the ether in black and white, not seen in its full polychromatic glory on the small screen until a broadcast in 1971.

After this film was made, Jackson moved to Hollywood, with Shadow on the Wall (1950), made for MGM, his only film there. He returned to Britain the following year and continued directing for the cinema, and later for television, until the end of the 1970s. He died at the age of ninety-five.

Western Approaches is a dual-format release from the BFI, comprising an all-regions Blu-ray and PAL DVD. A checkdisc of the former was supplied for review. Given a U certificate in 1944 (with some BBFC intervention, see above), the film is now a PG. The short films on this disc are all documentaries which are exempt from certification, but Ferry Pilot, Builders and Steel all carried U certificates on their original cinema releases.

The film was shot, as mentioned above, in Technicolor 35mm, as mentioned above in a combination of monopack and three-strip stock, and the Blu-ray transfer is in the intended ratio of 1.37:1. This transfer derives from the BFI and Imperial War Museum's restoration, of which more details see below when I discuss the booklet. There are differences between the three-strip and monopack footage, with the latter certainly grainier, and there are occasional instances of colour fringing, no doubt inherent to the source materials. However, it does look fine and as the restoration article, probably better than an original print, given the advantages of digital restoration over 1940s processing.

The soundtrack is the original mono, rendered as LPCM 2.0. There's noticeable hiss on the track more or less throughout, which is no doubt inherent in the original materials and the technological limitations of the time. (Recording live sound during the at-sea sequences can't have been easy.) English hard-of-hearing subtitles are available for the feature, though not the extras. They also transliterate the German dialogue and some French dialogue in German and French, though as most of the former and all the latter are intentionally left unsubtitled, they don't translate them. The subtitles which do appear for the German dialogue are burned-in (see screengrab for an example).

Commentary with Pat Jackson and Toby Haggith
This was recorded in 2004 for a DVD release, in which Jackson is interviewed by Toby Haggith of the Imperial War Museum. Jackson, then aged eighty-eight, is clearly sharp with his memories intact. That's particularly so with technical details, as to how particular scenes were shot and the issues with using both monopack and three-strip and matching the two. He begins by relating how score composer Clifton Parker came up with the main theme, which he played on the piano in Jackson's office shortly after seeing the film. He does talk about editing the film, though he isn't credited as such – his sister, Jocelyn Jackson, is listed as one of two cutters.  He speaks warmly about the sailors he made the film with, one of whom, Henry Hills, he gave an acting role in White Corridors (1951), in which he stole scenes from the film's star, Googie Withers. As Jackson – or indeed, likely anyone involved in the film production – is no longer with us, this commentary is a valuable addition.

Colour on the Sea (8:12)
This documentary is copyrighted 2023, but was actually shot in March 2009 by Craig McCall on HMS Belfast. Pat Jackson and Jack Cardiff are reunited and talk about the making of Western Approaches. Both men were in their nineties and look in good shape, though Cardiff only had another month to live. Their memories appear sharp, though Jackson is in error by saying that Western Approaches was Oscar-nominated for Best Feature Documentary.

Ferry Pilot (30:55)
Directed by Jackson in 1941, this was one of the earliest documentaries made for the Crown Film Unit intended for theatrical release, which it received the following year. This short film looked at the Air Transport Authority, a civilian air force, and the men and women trained to be pilots. The film concentrates on two of them: Thompson, an older Briton, and Talbot, a younger Canadian. Later, they are charged to deliver two Spitfires to an airbase, flying without radio which puts them in the path of the enemy.

Builders (8:11)
Also directed by Jackson, this time in 1942, this looks at the building of a factory during wartime. This was important to the War effort, as they were required to increase the production of munitions and we see just such a production line in action, and the manufacture of planes, tanks and guns. No doubt, it's said, such industriousness would equally be required in a future peacetime. The builders, for various reasons not out on the front fighting (in many cases, their sons were), are still made to feel that they were making a production.

People at War: A Seaman's Story (14:15)
Directed by John Taylor in 1943, this is a rather plain-looking piece with its subject mostly speaking to camera. The unnamed sailor, from Newfoundland, talks about how he was sunk four times, once during the Spanish Civil War in 1938, and three times during World War II, on an oil tanker, a liner and finally the ship which had picked up the survivors of the third sinking. He speaks about long days in a lifeboat, up to twenty days in one case, on hot days and cold nights, forever hungry and thirsty, with some of his colleagues not surviving. There was some doubt if all this was actually true, but the naval records of Cyril Jardine do in fact bear out that he was indeed sunk four times.

This is Colour (18:15)
Sponsored by ICI and made in 1942, this short film has as its selling point colour, and clearly worked on the assumption that if you have colour at your disposal, by God let's make use of it. And with Jack Cardiff behind the camera, shooting in three-strip, that's exactly what this film does, with one colour-saturated shot after another. Plenty of Technicolor money shots to be had, but the purpose is to teach us about the colour spectrum and how dyes are made. Directed by Jack Ellitt, the film has a script written by Dylan Thomas and delivered by Joseph Macleod, Valentine Dyall and Marjorie Fielding.

Steel (33:56)
More Cardiff and more Technicolor, this time in 1945 after Western Approaches had been made and released. Cardiff shares his credit with Cyril Knowles, and the director was Ronald H. Riley. The film shows us steel production from beginning to end, from the mining of iron ore to processing in a blast furnace and casting the molten steel into ingots. Cardiff and Knowles's camerawork makes the most of the reds, golds and oranges of the processes. The narration is delivered by John Laurie and if nothing else demonstrates that the accent he used in Dad's Army intentionally exaggerated his native Dumfries somewhat.

Western Approaches Linocut Production (1:25)
We watch Mat Pringle produce the sleeve art for this disc release, via linocut. There's no commentary as he works, shot on a phone (so vertical format) with some speeded-up motion. This is useful if you don't know what is involved in making a linocut, but it's a one-watch item even with its brevity.

Booklet
The BFI's booklet, available in the first pressing only, runs to thirty-six pages. It begins (following a spoiler warning) with an essay by Toby Haggith which begins with a quote from the film's continuity supervisor Phyllis Ross, credited on this film as Phil Ross, describing the film's production as the most exciting and hazardous job of her career, and doubting that Hitchcock's Lifeboat, released the same year, which had not gone nearer the sea than the studio tank, could look in any way authentic. Haggith talks about the motives for making the film, and the decision to shoot in technical, despite the arduous three-year production which brought the film in at over five times the original budget. He discusses the production difficulties, including the impossibility of filming location footage in a lifeboat with a huge three-strip camera (hence the use of monopack) and how it was hard to match the lighting from shot to shot. This is a good overview of the film and ends on a personal note: after Haggith joined the Imperial War Museum, his father watched Western Approaches. He had served as a merchant seaman during the War and found the film completely convincing.

Next up is Martin Stollery, talking about "Story and Documentary", namely the use of fiction techniques (scripting, reconstructions, the use of the real people as actors) that is exemplified by Western Approaches. This might make the films rather like conventional dramatic features, but there are differences, such as the use of non-actors, their authenticity carrying the scene rather than their delivery of the dialogue, though in this film there isn't much of an issue in the latter. The men's regional accents (and, as mentioned above, their occasional swearing) is not something you would often get in a fiction film, nor at the time would you be likely to hear Germans speaking in German rather than broken English. Other than a few WAAFs seen on screen, there are no women in the film and so none of the romance you might expect in a dramatic feature, to the extent that Picturegoer magazine wondered if Western Approaches would have any appeal to a female audience, who after all made up the bulk of cinemagoers on the Home Front. They compensated by running a story about the film concentrating on production manager Dora Wright.

Toby Dykes contributes a two-page biography of Pat Jackson,  Lillian Crawford three on Jack Cardiff and Toby Haggith five on Clifton Parker. The booklet doesn't contain credits for Western Approaches itself, but there the usual notes on and credits for the extras, with extended pieces by Steven Foxon on Ferry Pilot and People at War, Katy McGahan on Builders and Patrick Russell on This is Colour and Steel. Finally, David Walsh talks about the restoration of Western Approaches. He begins by discussing how a digital restoration inevitably looks better than an original print would do, given the limitations of the contemporary printing processes compared to the quality of the three black and white negatives. In the case of this film, the Imperial War Museum had the original camera negative and one nitrate positive print, which being dye-printed, hadn't faded and preserved the film's 1944 colour timing. The soundtrack was another matter, with the original negative having decomposed, so it was transferred for this restoration from that release print. A final paragraph talks about the footage shot on monopack, which do look more grainy and colour-saturated than the three-strip footage.

Western Approaches is one of the key wartime documentaries, though one at the edge of contemporary drama in its techniques and a rarity in the use of Technicolor. Classic documentaries like this, particularly from the War years, are the BFI's bread and butter and this dual-format release, in collaboration with the Imperial War Museum, gives a good account of it.