[4][5] The film is based on the novels The Big Pick-Up by Elleston Trevor and Dunkirk co-authored by Lt Col Ewan Butler and Major J. S.

[6] In 1940, English journalist Charles Foreman, in search of propaganda, strives to warn his complacent readers of the dangers posed by the build-up of German forces in western Europe.

Lieutenant Lumpkin, Corporal "Tubby" Binns and a handful of men of the British Expeditionary Force return from blowing up a bridge to find their division has withdrawn.

The lieutenant speaks to a driver left behind for them, but both are killed in a Luftwaffe aerial attack before Binns can be apprised of the situation, leaving him in charge of four men, Privates Barlow, Bellman, Fraser and Russell, with no idea where their unit has gone.

The officer commanding the battery orders Binns to head north with his men and two stragglers, Privates Harper and Miles, and try to find their unit.

Meanwhile, the situation has become so desperate that BEF commander General Gort ignores orders to counterattack and instead positions his units for evacuation from Dunkirk.

In England, Vice-Admiral Ramsay directs Operation Dynamo; the Admiralty begins commandeering all suitable civilian boats, including those owned by Foreman and Holden, to sail to Dunkirk to help evacuate troops from the beaches.

Binns and his men spend the night in an abandoned farmhouse, but at dawn, a German unit arrives; in the ensuing firefight, Bellman is badly wounded.

Later, after slipping past a German camp under cover of darkness, they stumble upon an RAF lorry, manned by Airmen Froome and Pannet, and go with them to Dunkirk, where Allied troops are being subjected to regular aerial bombing and strafing.

While Russell, a motor mechanic in civilian life, effects repairs, Foreman and Frankie go ashore to survey the scene.

Several scenes take place at this location, particularly a tracking shot following two British Army officers as they discuss the situation.

I didn't think that Dunkirk was a defeat; I always thought it was a very gallant effort but not a victory.The musical score is by Malcolm Arnold, which may account for the fact that many of its segments sound very much like his Academy Award-winning theme from The Bridge on the River Kwai, made the previous year (1957), or Heroes of Telemark (1965)[citation needed].

"[19] A review for The Spinning Image noted that "while it was a hit in its day and went onto be a staple of television broadcasts for many years, you can't but mention it was overshadowed by Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk in 2017 which applied twenty-first century techniques to a nineteen-forties plot and was one of the biggest movies of the twenty-tens, but the '58 version had a power of its own, and should not be dismissed.