HMS The Defiant

Naval drama set aboard a British warship during the years of the Napoleonic Wars.

Captain Crawford (Alec Guinness) is respected by his crew as a fair and just leader of men, but his second-in-command, Lt.

Scott-Padget (Dirk Bogarde), is known as a bitter sadist who likes to see the sailors suffer.

When Scott-Padget is killed in a mutiny, Crawford knows that he must punish the men responsible, but when they acquit themselves well during combat, he begins to have second thoughts, and soon finds himself in the midst of a full-blown crisis of conscience.