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The Battle of the River Plate is a 1956 film by the British-based director-writer team of Powell & Pressburger. In the United States the film was retitled Pursuit of the Graf Spee.

The film portrays the Battle of the River Plate, a naval battle of 1939, between a Royal Navy force of three cruisers (HMS Exeter, HMS Ajax and HMS Achilles) and the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee.

Unlike many British war movies of its time, The Battle of the River Plate treats the Germans as honourable opponents rather than as cardboard cut-out "Huns". This was a recurrent theme in Powell and Pressburger's films, including The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.

In the early months of WWII, the German Navy sent out various surface raiders to attack Allied merchant shipping. The Royal Navy sent out various hunting groups to find them. The group that found Admiral Graf Spee were very lightly armed in comparison, but went straight to the attack.

The British were led by Commodore Harwood (Anthony Quayle), with Captain Woodhouse (Ian Hunter) commanding the Ajax, Captain Bell (John Gregson) the Exeter and Captain Parry (Jack Gwillim) the Achilles. Captain Langsdorff's (Peter Finch) Graf Spee was much better armed than the three cruisers and inflicted a lot of damage but was fooled by the tactics of the British. The Graf Spee sustained damage itself and took refuge in a neutral port, but according to international law, had to leave by a specified time. Falsely believing that an overwhelming British force was lying in wait, Langsdorff took his ship out with a skeleton crew and scuttled her.

The film pays particular attention to detail, including the bells ringing before each salvo, the scorching on the gun barrels after the battle, and the accurate depiction of naval procedures. The scene where Harwood meets with his captains on board Ajax is pure fiction, created for the movie in order to explain the situation to the audience. The battle is seen entirely from the perspective of the British ships, plus that of prisoners (captured from nine merchantmen) held on Graf Spee.

Most of the action of the battle and prior to it takes place on real ships at sea. The producers had the advantage of having elements of the Mediterranean Fleet of the Royal Navy available for their use and USS Salem to play the part of Admiral Graf Spee (although she had the wrong number of main turrets). This meant that they didn't have to rely on extensive use of models like most Naval war films. Of course they couldn't scuttle the USS Salem so they had to use a model for the scuttling of Admiral Graf Spee. In one scene it is claimed that the Admiral Graf Spee is being disguised - using features such as a false funnel - as an American cruiser, a trick typical of commerce raiders. The U.S. Navy would not allow any Nazi insignia to be displayed on the Salem so the wartime German flag being hoisted and flown was filmed on a British ship.

Filming started on the 16th anniversary of the battle. The HMS Ajax and River Plate Association reportedly sent a message to the producers: "Hope your shooting will be as successful as ours."

• Dudley Pope (1956). The Battle of the River Plate. London: William Kimber, 259pp (illus). 
• Ian Christie (1994). Arrows of Desire: the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. London: Faber & Faber, 163pp (illus. filmog. bibliog. index). ISBN 0-571-16271-1. 

• HMS Achilles played by herself (INS Delhi)
• HMS Exeter played by HMS Jamaica
• HMS Ajax played by HMS Sheffield
• Admiral Graf Spee played by USS Salem
• HMS Cumberland (which joined after the main battle) played by herself
• HMS Battleaxe and HMS Birmingham were used as camera ships.

• The Battle of the River Plate at the Internet Movie Database
• The Battle of the River Plate at the British Film Institute's Screenonline. Full synopsis and film stills (and clips viewable from UK libraries).
• Reviews and articles at the Powell & Pressburger Pages

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