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.
Old, slow and short on coal, the Ergenstrasse is seen as easy prey by the Royal Australian Navy and by Napier in particular, who understandably holds a grudge. The wily Ehrlich leads his enemies on a chase across the Pacific Ocean, pausing only briefly for supplies at an unmanned rescue station on Auckland Island. Three fishermen are already marooned there, but Kirchner casually murders them and takes most of their supplies. He tells no one. The pursuing Napier discovers the bodies and, believing his old friend is responsible, vows to bring Ehrlich to justice as a war criminal.
Ehrlich, meanwhile, sets course for the remote, uninhabited Pacific island of Pom Pom Galli in the Tuamotus. Running out of coal, Ehrlich begins burning wood from the ship for fuel, upsetting crewmen when the lifeboats are burned. A potential mutiny is averted as they reach the island. While Ehrlich drives the crew to harvest timber there for fuel, he impresses Elsa with his humane side. Discovering that Kirchner murdered the fishermen, an angry Ehrlich forces him to sign an account of his actions in the ship's log. Then Erlich punches Kirchner in the mouth, drawing blood and knocking his hair askew.
Napier finally convinces the Rockhamptons captain that Ehrlich will be at Pom Pom Galli, but they arrive too late. Both ships make for Valparaíso in neutral Chile, where Napier cannot attack. In port, a frustrated Napier confronts Ehrlich about the murders, slapping Erlich and calling him a murderer and coward. Ehrlich says that if they catch the Ergenstrasse they can read the truth in his log. Meanwhile Elsa learns the truth herself, distances herself from Kirchner, and declares her love for Ehrlich. They share the captain’s cabin for the remainder of the voyage.
Luck is with the Ergenstrasse when the Rockhampton is called away to support cruisers facing the German pocket battleship Graf Spee in Montevideo, Uruguay. Napier requests a transfer to the British naval patrols in the North Sea, believing that Ehrlich must pass that way in his attempt to reach Kiel. Napier flies to England as the Ergenstrasse, resupplied with coal and lifeboats, departs for Germany.