Bandiera di combattimento

If a person looked to the movie poster to show them what the movie would be about, the one for "The Eternal Sea" would seriously mislead them. After all, you see the Rear Admiral (Sterling Hayden) locked in the arms of his wife (Alexis Smith). However, this movie isn't really a romance and the scene has little to do with this film.

Instead of a romance, the film is about a career naval officer-- specifically from WWII until 1955. When the film starts, Captain Hoskins (Hayden) is desk-bound and longing to be back in command of a ship since the war is raging. However, when he finally gets a ship after years of waiting, he's severely injured even before he can take actual command of the ship...losing his lower leg in the process. But Hoskins was determined not to be retired and fought the Navy to remain on active duty. But the war ends and so far the film has given the audience little to understand why they made a movie about the guy. His post-WWII career turned out to be far more eventful as he championed jet aircraft on aircraft carriers and took the US fleet into the Korean War.

Overall, this is a mildly interesting lower-budgeted bio-pic. Nothing great, nothing bad about the film...just a decent military film with only a reasonable amount of stock footage (a big plus).