Just so...so bad

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

A Surprisingly Unforgettable Movie!

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

This B-Movie has a Few Things Going. First it is Off Beat and Surprisingly the Violence is Up Close and Disturbing for a Fifties Film. The On Location and On Board Filming is Authentic and Adds to the Realism. Director Stone seems to be Warming Up for His Masterpiece, The Last Voyage (1960) as it has the Same Setting and Crisp Camera Work and Hypertension.The A-Listers James Mason and Broderick Crawford, along with Sexpot Dorothy Dandridge (revealing Her charms more than typical for the Era), are OK, but the Rest of the Cast from Stuart Whitman on Down do some Pretty Bad Acting.This is a Film that is Stark and Quite Different in Tone than Most of the Films from the 1950's and has an Atmosphere of Dread that Works and there are some Scenes at Sea that are Extremely Well Done. Worth a Watch as a Tense Low-Budgeter and to See James Mason doing some Slumming and Swimming. Great Title.

A new captain takes command of his first ship only to find himself confronted with numerous problems. First there is hostility from his Chief Mate, who feels that he has been passed over for command, and from some of the crew who agree. Then there is the inflammatory presence of a woman steward, signed on at the last moment to replace a crew member who jumped ship. Worst of all is a somewhat ludicrous mutiny plot perpetrated by a couple of the engine room crew to murder the entire crew and take over the ship. Although the plot is supposedly based on a true story the tension fails to the level that it might have done, which is probably attributable to the director rather than the cast. However, give the film full marks for it's shipboard atmosphere, which is certainly highly authentic, thanks to the fact that it was filmed aboard a couple of real merchant ships. The scenes on the bridge of Matson Line's old SS Mariposa are played pretty much as they would have been in real life, as are the subsequent scenes shot on board the freighter, which is almost certainly a Liberty Ship, of which many were still around at the time this film was made. Perhaps the only detail of the freighter that doesn't ring true is the fact that she is riding much higher in the water than she normally would have been because, since the ship was being used as a movie prop, she was obviously carrying no cargo or ballast, and very little fuel.

Despite Oscar winner Broderick Crawford and nominees James Mason, Dorothy Dandridge, Stuart Whitman, and Jack Kruschen, this 84 minute amateurish production is excruciatingly long and dull and badly acted. This may be based on a real story but this production is among the worst films I've ever seen---and I've seen thousands of films. And all the acting is dreadful. It seems like they're making is up as they go along. Stupid dialog, ridiculous situations, and dumb characters make this a total waste of time. Laughable from the very opening, this turkey goes on and on and on until the foolish ending. I cannot believe such good actors as Mason and Crawford got stuck in this bilge. Dandridge comes off like a cartoon and Whitman is witless. David Cross, Hank Patterson, Barney Phillips, and Katherine Bard also appear to no advantage. This project should have been scuttled before the cameras started.

These two merchant sailors -- Broderick Crawford and Stewart Whitman -- get a crazy idea aboard a freighter. They're going to kill every officer and man aboard, waterlog the ship, radio for help, claim there was a mutiny and everyone left the ship but them, and claim the ship, worth a million bucks, for salvage.Granted, the idea is slightly askew, but these guys are snipes, working down in the engine room and the temperature there runs around 116 degrees and sounds like the deepest pits of hell. That environment will drive anyone nuts. Besides, it's like the old joke. "How's your wife?" "Compared to WHAT?" If you put Crawford and Whitman next to the Manson Family or al Qaeda they look like paragons of rationality. So, okay, let's leave them some leeway, so to speak.I'll skip the plot, I guess, because it doesn't require much in the way of explanation. The dialog lacks verve and credibility. "Anything can happen!" "Whoever destroyed the radios must have had a PURPOSE." And when the officers find three corpses in the engine room, someone says to Mason, "Do you realize the ENORMITY of this?" The acting doesn't require much comment either. Everybody involved delivers about what you'd expect. Mason is smooth, Crawford plays a junk man, Whitman is a little ratty, and none of the others stand out -- except Dorothy Dandridge. She can't act very well, but -- wow! What a dish. I don't know about "a million bucks" but Dorothy Dandridge could start a genuine mutiny alright. I vaguely remember seeing this when it was released and, it may be hard for a contemporary viewer to understand but, like "The Sniper," which was released about the same time, it was shocking in its brutality. The theater suddenly went kind of quiet when Crawford deliberately picked off one of the crew members from a few feet away with a high-powered rifle. The sexy Dandridge was memorable too, although I don't recall that she quieted down the audience.The Perrys, who produced, had a habit of using real locations for their shoots. "Cry Terror," another suspenser with James Mason, made good use of New York locations. And they actually sunk a liner for one of their movies, something like, "The Last Voyage." I'm glad they never made a movie about the end of the world.The story isn't really a grabber and the acting is no more than routine but this is worth seeing, if only because it gives you a chance to feel what it's really like to be on a ship, not a mockup of the kind that John Wayne sails through with such ease. The ship, by the way, is pretty ship shape and not at all a rust bucket. She's also high in the water because she's carrying no cargo.