The Battles of Coronel and Falkland Islands

This dramatic reconstruction of two decisive naval battles from the Great War is one of the finest films of the British silent era. The Battle of Coronel, off the coast of Chile, was a triumph for German Admiral von Spee and the first defeat of the British navy for a hundred years, The retaliatory strike was instigated six weeks later by Admiral Fisher, who sent two large battlecruisers, HMS Invincible and HMS Inflexible, to the South Atlantic to restore British supremacy. Filmed on real battleships supplied by the admiralty, this monumental production, like Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (1925), glories in the power and beauty of the machine. (British Film Institute (BFI))