Perry Kate
Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!
Bessie Smyth
Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.
Marva
It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
Skyler
Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.
clanciai
The novel is all realism with no real plot and drama of an almost documentary character, while the film is more like the stuff of Jack London, Wolf-Larsen, Nordhoff & Hall and Kipling's "Captains Courageous". The most important feature of the book is also in the film, though: the humanity on board in spite of all the hard knuckles of inhumanity.Richard H. Dana is in the film on board the ship all the same, and his part is no less interesting than in the book but taken from another angle, which makes his part even more interesting. He is the only one to enlist on the "Pilgrim" voluntarily while many of the others are shanghaied, and he volunteers for a very specific purpose.Howard Da Silva plays expertly the part of the cruelly insensitive captain provoking a mutiny at any cost, it would seem, sacrificing sailors' lives for the sake of sailing records, William Bendix is always fascinating and raises every film some points, but here he is the brutal first mate with a double edge. Brian Donleavy is Dana and perfect together with Alan Ladd, who makes the main character and a very interesting one. To all this comes Victor Young's irresistible music, always golden, and the splendid thorough hands-on realism all the way, with fascinating insights into life on board. Barry Fitzgerald is the cook, directly out of "Wolf-Larsen" it would seem, and supplies a portion humour and lyricism. There are even some ladies, more prominent and attractive than in the book. The scurvy problem, which is not in the book, brings the drama.
edalweber
As a lurid melodrama I suppose that this is OK,provided that you do not take it seriously.It may seem'realistic" because it is so grim and gritty, but it will not stand up to close examination.The producers were shamelessly trading on the reputation of one of the greatest books about the sea for a contrived soap opera. It would have been far more honest to make up their own title.Virtually nothing about the movie bears the slightest resemblance to the book. I saw the movie,and have read the book several times. It is a great account full of details, very well written which deserves repeated readings, to get the most out of it.Seeing the movie once was quite enough.The only real characters were Captain Thompson, and Dana himself, who is of course the narrator of the book which is the true account of his own experiences.The real Dana actually was more like the fictitious Stewart than the ordinary seaman he is in the movie. He was from an upper class family, and a student at Harvard who was making this trip to "toughen up" and repair his health.The part about his brother dying from abuse as a seaman was total fiction.The real Captain Thompson was a hard and sometimes brutal man, who abused his authority by flogging two seamen without just cause,although apparently it was a case of loosing his temper. Apparently he secretly regretted it, because later he controlled his temper under much more trying circumstances,and even refrained from flogging the carpenter after he had urged the mate to seize command from the captain.Flogging was apparently much rarer than legend has it;when the ship arrived in California, and word of the flogging spread among the other ships in the hider trade,the seamen on the other ships at first thought it was a joke, and then were very shocked and surprised when they found out that it actually happened, indicating that it was far from normal.Thompson and the "Pilgrim" rapidly got a very bad reputation.The scurvy incident, intended to show the callousness of the captain, actually, if it had happened, would indicate that he was insane.No captain would have done that.Regardless of his lack of humanity, he needed the crew to work the ship,and scurvy would render them helpless.In fact, scurvy did strike during the trip home, and the captain desperately sought out any ship that had fresh provisions, which he found.Actually, Dana was not trying to lessen the authority of the captain in law.He didn't even want to remove his right to flog disobedient seamen;he said that if he ever went to see as a captain, he would want to have the authority to flog,though he would hope that he would never have to use it, because of the unruly elements represented among common seamen.He felt that it was essential as a constant threat to maintain discipline He did say that captains should be held accountable for abuse of their authority,and that courts were far too lenient on ones convicted of abuse.In the book he said that at the time of the floggings he swore to bring Thompson to justice;whether he actually did or not is unclear.His family was friendly with the senior partner of the firm that operated the ships he sailed on in the California hide trade.
dbdumonteil
By several respects ,some kind of updated "Captain courageous" (Victor Fleming ,1937).The rich kid (Alan Ladd) has grown up and he is still frivolous ,part of the young jet set ,drinking and picking up girls in the low dives of the harbor.When dad learns that his boy is on his own ship,in the clutch of a -rather sadistic- captain ,he does not panic and wisely mumbles something like " it 'll make a man of him" ;which is not entirely false.Not only ,the boy born silver spoon in hand will learn the harsh realities of life ,but he'll also feel for his unfortunate shipmates (many of them poor press-ganged aboard victims like himself ).Although the movie is centered on Ladd's misadventures ,it actually depicts "Henry Dana's crusade to expose mistreatment of men at sea" (Maltin).But the reviewer is wrong when he writes that it is a "badly scripted story":in fact only the female character gets in the way and the ending is botched.All that remains is absorbing ,the standout being for me the ship's boy.Farrow was better at film noir ,but his attempt at an adventures movies is recommendable.Like this ? try these ...."Mutiny on the Bounty" (Frank Lloyd's 1935 version is still the best) "Captain Courageous" (Fleming,1937) "Down to the sea in ships" (Henry Hathaway,1949) "Ghost Ship" (Mark Robson/Val Lewton,1943) "White squall" (Ridley Scott,1996)
raskimono
I am disappointed to see the sparsity of votes for this very-of-guys movie. This box-office smash of 1946 which is a sly attempt to invoke the more academy award favored Mutiny on the Bounty. Obviously, this movie was made to win awards and to give prestige to the studio, producer and actors involved. It did not garner a single nomination. Based on a true story and a best-selling non-fiction book from the 19th Century, it details the kind of cruelty and inhumanity that was used back then to run a ship. The stand-out of many fine performances is Howard da Silva as the captain Thompson who is more interested in breaking arrival records than in keeping the health, morality or moue of his crew in a flush of pink. Alan Ladd is the somewhat lead for make no mistake, this is no Ladd piece but an ensemble of Paramount's finest and great character actors. William Bendix, an actor who puts to shame the theory that real acting began with those "method" actors of the fifties with everything he does, is perfect as the first mate Amanzine. Shot strictly on studio sets, it does have the necessary realism of the open seas and azure skies that could give it the needed extra texture but it tries and works all the same. Unexpected events happen and formula is avoided until a rushed third act and ending that feels to hurried to resonate. That is why I voted it an 8/10. It is just too flat, as if the producers were late for dinner or something and slapped something together. Surely, events you want to see resolved is giving the sleight of hand and the picture is only 98 mins, so why the hurry? A good guy's movie with fine performances. It could have been a classic but it's just a good movie. P.S. I cannot believe Da Silva was not nominated for his performance. That is just a plain travesty.