Infamousta
brilliant actors, brilliant editing
Lela
The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.
Bob
This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
Roxie
The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;
rodrig58
Everything is excellent in this: story, direction, music, cinematography and, specially, last but not least, the actors. Marlon Brando and Yul Brynner are simply fantastic. All the others are top notch, Janet Margolin, Trevor Howard, Martin Benrath, Hans Christian Blech, etc. The film has tension, suspense, dramatic quality, great message. One of the best movies ever made. Super excellent! Bernhard Wicki (1919–2000) was a great filmmaker, director of great talent, very good actor, writer, producer, etc.
sol-
Blackmailed into impersonating an SS officer so that he can sabotage a Nazi cargo ship, a German expatriate gradually discovers that the ruthless ship captain detests the war just as much as him in this striking World War II thriller. The film bombed upon initial release and has since slid into relative obscurity - something often attributed to the obtuse title - which is a shame, since it is a commendable effort with all concerned in top form. Marlon Brando carries a credible German accent and Janet Margolin has some strong scenes as a Jewish woman rescued from a U-boat, however, the film absolutely belongs to Yul Brynner as the ship's captain, only ever-so-gradually humanised with his unrequited affection for Margolin and his coming to see Brando's saboteur as a friend. The film does not exactly spin an airtight story and Brando's absolute ease in impersonating an SS officer never quite rings true; the fact that he never seems that nervous or worried about being found out also renders his character less interesting. There is, however, a lot to like in the similarities that Brando and Brynner soon find with one another, both resentful of the Nazis, albeit for different reasons. The film also benefits from one of Jerry Goldsmith's most rousing scores and Conrad L. Hall's Oscar nominated mobile cinematography admirably brings the enclosed ship environment to life.
PimpinAinttEasy
I re-watched this Brando-Yul Brynner film after almost a decade. I liked it a lot lesser this time. This is Brando's second film about intrigue and mutiny on a ship. He had acted in Mutiny on the Bounty three years earlier. It is also his second film as a German - he had acted as a sympathetic Nazi in The Young Lions. In Morituri, he plays a German engineer who is persuaded by the allied forces to impersonate a cruel SS officer while traveling on a German ship. His mission is to carry out sabotage so that the allied forces can steal the rubber which is the ship's cargo. Yul Brynner is the ship's Nazi hating captain.It really is a tepid anti-war film. There was not a single scene worth mentioning. There are a lot of wannabe clever, cynical and ironic dialogs. But nothing really works. The director fails to create any sort of tension. Brando's character easily fools everyone on the ship. Janet Margolin's Jewish character who is gang raped by prisoners on the ship (this happens towards the end of the film and by this time I was too bored to be shocked) is supposed to emphasize the film's anti-war message.There is a long tracking shot (almost certainly shot from a helicopter) where the camera pans the length of a ship while Yul Brynner passes orders down to the crew. But it adds nothing to the film.Brynner and Brando are introduced in two exotic locations - Tokyo and India respectively. Brando's performance deserves some praise. As usual, he is all body language. I love the way he carries himself. He did exude cruelty in many of the scenes. Brynner's role was too sentimental and over the top. His accent was quite painful to my ears. Jerry Goldsmith's laidback score reminded me of the one used in The Third Man.This must be one of the most uninspired war movies that I have ever watched.(5/10)
secondtake
Morituri (1965)I had no expectation here. The name was odd. And the description was odd--a WWII film from the point of view of the enemy. Sort of. And so I didn't really think I'd be fully captive.And I was. This is a special film war film. For one thing it has Marlon Brando being his arrogant best, and Yul Brynner, too. It presents an odd dramatic situation, a tension between strong willed characters who don't quite know what the other is up to. Here I mean Brando playing a German plant on this ship going from Japan to Europe, and Brynner, the captain, a disgruntled German with some experience both with the wheel and the bottle. The ship is a modern (1942) Japanese ship, and among the crew are a bunch of political prisoners, who of course can't be totally trusted. The cargo is rubber, the most sought after material in the early war (later it would be uranium, I suppose).Cinematographer Connie Hall is quite aggressive and brilliant with his photography, keeping the angles and movement nearly constant. The light is dramatic, the sharpness clean. And he got nominated for an Oscar for his work. The interior of the ship is large and filled with strange turns, great heights, lots of interior and exterior spaces that take you by surprise. Beautiful stuff.The plot moves more quickly than you'd expect, too, with little surprises and turns, like finding a burning American ship at night and rescuing survivors. One of these is a young woman who was born in Berlin and they question her--why is a German on an enemy ship? And she says she is not German. And they ask what is she? You expect here that she might say she was American, but even better she says, "I am anti-German."The script is tight and believable. The scenario, which is not formed from fact as far as I could discover (it's based on a novel), seems reasonable. And it ends up being more subtle than you'd expect. Yes, there are aspects that are obvious dramatic additions--the one woman who appears, for example, happens to be Jewish--but these end up being ways of showing people's characters. Ultimately that's what this movie is about.