Review of Born for Glory

The DVD I own uses 'Forever England' as its title displaying an non-descript other type of armored cruiser on the box having no relevance to the ships used in the film. Well, these are minor issues with a film so muddled in narrative. Opening in 1893 (?) , with Queen Victoria still alive and well, it manages to present a poster featuring the later King George V in the opening scenes. A completely redundant scene to introduce us to the future parents of the character played by John Mills. The story then leap-frogs to the young Mills going through training and embarking on one of those obsolete naval vessels still in abundance at the start of WW I. The Germans are befriended in waters far away, a bit of nice rivalry occurs, war breaks out in an instant, the bigger gunned German cruiser annihilates the old tub Mills sails in. Mills survives, is picked up , cared for and manages to escape when the cruiser reaches an Island for repairs. Up to this point it was all mildly interesting with Mills his usual competent self and quite a view nice naval shots. (Dreadnoughts close-up, Leander class cruiser) To stall the cruiser, Mills sabotages the repair by shooting his German buddy in the back. My jaw dropped. He could easily have shot the German standing 3 feet away, or aimed for a leg. But no, he simply executes his earlier buddy deliberately. A bit as if Schindler decided to turn in the 1000 saved Jews after a bit of soul searching by the end of 1944. And this type of behavior would have inspired people? John Mills makes the best of it and we get to see a few interesting technical scenes, but unwatchable towards the end. Avoid.