Perhaps Louis B. Mayer was giggling from beyond with MGM's string of trashy flops like this, "The High Cost of Loving" and "Night of the Quarter Moon" in 1958 and 1959 in spite of the fact that they won the Academy Award for those years. The touch of class of the Mayer years was dissipating the release of films like this even though there were a few prestigious films here and there. Even an Andy Hardy return didn't bring back the glory days as the last of the big MGM musicals were put into production and sinking audiences having turned to television and drive-in movies didn't go to the theaters as much.
With a cast led by James Mason, Broderick Crawford, Dorothy Dandridge and Stuart Whitman and a shipboard setting, this should have been at least an interesting B film. But it's a confusing mess of a film dealing with a mutiny that could never happen (or if it did, not done as stupidly as it is in this led by Crawford playing the bully of all bullies), and the presents of the world weary Dandridge aboard, looking tired and far from sultry like she was four years before as Carmen Jones.
I blame the mediocrity of this movie on the structure and direction, particularly the weak narration provided by Mason. It sounds like it was filmed on an antique tape recorder, and does not at all add to the tension of the story. The characters are very one-dimensional, either very good or completely rotten, and Crawford bellows his way through his performance even more so than he did in his oscar-winning performance in "All the King's Men" and his follow-up in "Born Yesterday'. In those films, he knew the moments when to turn it down, but he is completely over the top and comes off foolishly. The fact that anybody would follow his orders is beyond belief because his scheme is ridiculous. Definitely a curiosity though, and I give thumbs up for Dandridge allowing herself to look much less glamorous than other leading ladies of the time.
With a cast led by James Mason, Broderick Crawford, Dorothy Dandridge and Stuart Whitman and a shipboard setting, this should have been at least an interesting B film. But it's a confusing mess of a film dealing with a mutiny that could never happen (or if it did, not done as stupidly as it is in this led by Crawford playing the bully of all bullies), and the presents of the world weary Dandridge aboard, looking tired and far from sultry like she was four years before as Carmen Jones.
I blame the mediocrity of this movie on the structure and direction, particularly the weak narration provided by Mason. It sounds like it was filmed on an antique tape recorder, and does not at all add to the tension of the story. The characters are very one-dimensional, either very good or completely rotten, and Crawford bellows his way through his performance even more so than he did in his oscar-winning performance in "All the King's Men" and his follow-up in "Born Yesterday'. In those films, he knew the moments when to turn it down, but he is completely over the top and comes off foolishly. The fact that anybody would follow his orders is beyond belief because his scheme is ridiculous. Definitely a curiosity though, and I give thumbs up for Dandridge allowing herself to look much less glamorous than other leading ladies of the time.