The Caine Mutiny
The Caine Mutiny
NR | 24 June 1954 (USA)
The Caine Mutiny Trailers

When a US Naval captain shows signs of mental instability that jeopardize his ship, the first officer relieves him of command and faces court martial for mutiny.

Reviews
Hellen

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

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Micitype

Pretty Good

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SnoReptilePlenty

Memorable, crazy movie

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Baseshment

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

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cinemajesty

At a time, when television took place to invade private homes, Columbia Pictures presented a star vehicle with Humphrey Bogart as hopelessly overwhelmed substitute captain of the mine sweeping navy ship, called "Caine", which will grant him another academy award nomination for an actor in a leading role.At mark 25mins 35sec Bogart introduces the character of Queeg on the ship's deck, already getting hold into spiritual stranglehold of former captain, played by Tom Tully who desperately remarks before leaving ship "Keep the clock running thirty minutes slow to remember of the foul of the crew of the Caine." Screenwriter Stanley Roberts does everything in his power to bring the uncanny feeling of doomed ship's enterprise to the page. Trust has been given by producer Stanley Kramer, at that time still working for his first directing credit, so he passed the directing job to Edward Dymtryk, who has been overstepped by the Academy for a nomination as best director in 1955, which came at no surprise due to the lack of a personal signature towards the picture.The director utilizes craft-fully the given techniques from stunning technicolor imagery paired with restored documentary footage of maneuvering battleships in the Pacific ocean. Clearly helped out by his production designer Rudolph Stenard, creating a color-force out of sandstone, green and blue, and not to forget score composer Max Steiner who elevated the atmosphere of the picture. It has been a promising start for the director, when pitch-perfect beats strike at a training-concluding U.S. Marine ceremony when actor Robert Francis gives inaudible gestures to his fiancée, "I'll see you in ten." At this point, the director's eye approves and he keeps on directing safely in static beautifully balanced color shots and a POV of the movie's youngest character, who boards the Caine at running time mark 07mins 15sec by seeing mother of at the peer and neglecting the fiancée. Character Keith runs promptly into Lt. Tom Keefer, played by magnificent Fred MacMurray, who brings the ship's business down to a punchline,"A ship designed by geniuses, run by idiots." Me in the audience is getting prepared for a pace-holding classic, live-action shots of Navy destroyers crossing the Pacific, but the crew shows their quality completing their first drill with a goof ball procedure. The officers have time to write novels in the mean-time, so the Captain DeVriess gladly gives the command to Bogart's character Cpt. Queeg, who strikes back with fragility to motivate his crew, "There is the right way, the wrong, the Navy way and my way." Editor, Henry Batista, does the job with at times surprising EWS (extreme wide) and MFS (medium-full) shot inter-cutting, but Minutes later gets sloppy straight-angled medium-full and to medium-close-up shots in order to bring the picture of its requested 2-hour deliverable.At of the ACT I provides the audience's eye a relief at a country side, referring to a nowadays vanished life of the U.S. Western Coast in the 1950s, where arguably the strongest moments in "The Caine Mutiny" take place due to a connecting Director-Producer symbiosis and raising production value with interweaving shots of a full-bloom country side, a falling fire from a rock-side building the contrast as Earth & Fire towards the concluding storm scene, where the name-given mutiny takes place in the element Air & Water.Tensions by a performing ensemble cast can be hold to the point of mutiny, even with another playful anecdote on the Cpt. Queeg commanding abilities, when at a officers' briefing, Lt. Keefer coughs into the captain's speech, "Sorry captain that smoke went down the wrong way", followed by an honest close-up of Humphrey Bogart, bringing the fading captain to life. The continuing failing battle assignments somehow, recalls a recent battleship extravaganza from 2012er directed by Peter Berg, which makes me want to watch that movie again, strangely enough due to the 58-year-old Hollywood lifespan in between.Director Dymtryk clearly gets his captain's bug, when towards the end of ACT II, in middle of setting up the mutiny scene, sloppy matte paint and back projection work spoils the picture before presenting another strong scene on the Caine's bridge in the middle of a high sea storm, where Bogart's character gets entangled by their fellow officers. He starts to misjudge the ship's situation. Dutch angle take place for a derailed character, which pushes reminisces to Gregg Toland's Cinematography in "The Third Man", when the show is all over at 1hour 21mins 00sec.ACT III revives the love story between character Keith and his fiancée May with infantile approaches. Supporting actor Jose Ferrer gets brought in as internal affair lawyer faking his right hand injury, who's name is still used to market the movie. His performance limbs back on the expectations. The director loses grip. The pace of the film runs low and overall suspension gets loss. Missing clearly an Hitchcockean factor at the court room sequence.Humphrey Bogart does not stroke a home-run with his performance, but brings his final moments in the court room professional to the finish line referring to an overall statement, "that a captain of any ship must be perfect.". Sealed close-ups, crossed legs, camera pushing in on tighter to a rare extreme-close-up on Bogart's face revealing hints of a green iris in his eyes and sweating lips, covering his breath work professionally and concludes the show as another movie under his rooster.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend

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Prismark10

The Caine Mutiny is regarded as a classic thriller of a mutiny aboard a naval ship in World War II that turns into a court room saga. In fact 'A Few Good Men' is really an updated remake.The destroyer Caine is a small creaky old ship whose rather relaxed captain is replaced by Captain Queeg (Humphrey Bogart) a disciplinarian. As time goes on he upsets both his officers and crew and shows signs of paranoia, stress and even cowardice.Lieutenant Thomas Keefer (Fred MacMurray) who was a writer before being called up notices the signs of mental illness and tries to convince Executive Officer Steve Maryk (Van Johnson) to do something about it. Maryk refuses at first but finally takes over command when in a storm Queeg nearly capsizes the ship.Maryk and some of the other officers stand trial for mutiny and they are reluctantly defended by Lieutenant Barney Greenwald (Jose Ferrer) only after other military lawyers have turned them down.Of course it is not going to take much for Greenwald to expose Queeg's instability, under intense pressure Queeg takes out his stress balls. However Greenwald reserves his ire after the trial on Keefer for engineering the mutiny so one day he can publish a book about it and Maryk as well as others for not helping Queeg when he asked for help and it was clear he had seen too much of war.The film loses focus often when it concentrates on an irrelevant love story between an Ensign and his girlfriend. The film also has an uneven tone, not helped by the musical score.However Bogart delivers another 'against type' performance. His Queeg starts out confidently before spiralling downwards. There is solid support from Van Johnson and Fred McMurray whose character really is cynical and slippery, therefore rightly exposed at the end of the movie.

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Jackson Schreiber

The Caine Mutiny, while little remembered today, is a great example of how a stellar book can be adapted into a great movie. Featuring an excellent cast and an engaging story, all while looking visually spectacular, The Caine Mutiny is an underrated classic from the 1950's.The movie stars Robert Francis as Willie Keith, an ensign who is assigned tho the USS Caine. There, he meets Lieutenant Commander William De Vriess, Executive Officer Steve Maryk, and Communications Officer Tom Keefer. Shortly thereafter, De Vriess is replaced by the hard-nosed yet uneasy looking Captain Queeg. Keefer suspects the captain may be paranoid and is unsuitable to run the ship. Maryk becomes irritated by this suggestion, yet soon realizes it after Queeg orders everyone on the ship to search for a quart of frozen strawberries at 1 A.M. Maryk relieves Queeg of command during a storm, and is put in a court-martial.The film is well shot, especially the exterior of the ship during the storm, and the Technicolor works in favor of the film, providing a more beautiful setting to the film. The setting allows the viewer to be drawn in easily to the movie, its characters, its story, and is never dull, even in the prolonged court scene, always remaining interesting until the credits roll.Queeg is easily the most interesting character. Queeg seems to be a man who puts morale as a top priority, yet is shown to be mentally unbalanced and has showings of paranoia. Yet at the same time, he never truly loses his sanity, and retains enough of a normal attitude to look normal to outsiders.This is why the role works so well. There's such a fine line on his paranoia that he really could just be eccentric, and not paranoid. However, his breakdown while being cross-examined in the court proves his paranoia to be indeed true.An interesting parallel brought up at the end is how similar Keefer is to Queeg. Keefer is shown to be a coward, bringing up Queeg's paranoia, and yet doesn't act on it, reaping the benefits when Maryk is at the court-martial, and lies on the stand about Queeg's behavior, effectively proving he's as cowardly as Queeg is paranoid.The Caine Mutiny is an excellent film, and strangely, is largely forgotten. The only thing that even bogs down the movie slightly is the romance between Willie and May. Otherwise, the movie is a testament to film adaptations of books, and is a definite must-watch for any movie fan.

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Russell Campbell

I was expecting more when I watched this movie for the first time today. In other reviews, I've seen some criticisms of the special effects, which I found ridiculous. I mean, come on, it's an old movie, what do you expect? You have to just go with that and deal with it. The plot is much more important.What was odd to me was this love interest thing that seemed to have no place in the movie and the overbearing mom issue that was never really addressed. It's a movie about a mutiny and suddenly people are off in Yosemite romancing each other? It just didn't seem to work.And then the court martial. The win was a little too easy. And the speech at the end by the defense lawyer. Hey, that captain was off his rocker, but because he'd supposedly done some other things well earlier in his career, the men on that ship were supposed to let him get them killed? And the idea that after he'd exhibited unbalanced behavior that his plea for "help" was supposed to be trusted by the officers and if they had listened he wouldn't have freaked out in the typhoon? Maybe, but not real plausible. I think most people would be quite wary by that time and would have trouble trusting him when he asked for help.Anyway, Bogart did a fine job and there were good turns by the others, but the movie just kind of fell flat, IMHO.

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