Very well executed

Sadly Over-hyped

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

"The Last Voyage" is an American disaster film written and directed by Andrew L. Stone and released in 1960. Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone star as a couple traveling on the SS Claridon en route to Japan with their Shirley Temple-like daughter. A fire starts in the boiler room and the damage leads to an explosion, which threatens to sink the ship. George Sanders plays the in-denial captain who thinks his ship is unsinkable and Woody Strode a crewmember who assists the couple. There are similarities in the story to the sinking of the SS Andria Doria, which sank four years earlier.The trailer advertised the film as "91 minutes of the most intense suspense in motion picture history" and it's actually not far from the truth (up to that time) as this is a very suspenseful film from beginning to end. Another plus is that they didn't use conventional sets and special effects; the movie's shot on a real ship, the French luxury liner SS Ile de France, which was scheduled to be scrapped before Stone rented it for $1.5 million. The vessel was partially sunk in shallow waters and the crashing of the towering funnel into the deckhouse is for real.Despite these impressive elements the film lost half a million at the box office and fails to break the threshold of greatness like 1972's "The Poseidon Adventure" and 1997's "Titanic." It's more consistently suspenseful from beginning to end, but this reveals its weakness: The film lacks the establishment of characters of those other films, which isn't to say there aren't parts of mounting anticipation. Nevertheless, instead of a great build-up to disaster it's more of an even-keel of suspense.Moreover, "The Last Voyage" lacks the deeper subtext of those more popular sinking-ship films. Whereas "The Poseidon Adventure" potently addresses the universal question "Why does a righteous God allow tragedy and death?" and "Titanic" explores the corruption of wealth and the unbiased idealism of youth, "The Last Voyage" is simply a movie about a sinking ship and the people trying to survive. Of course, it doesn't HAVE to be anything more than this and it's very good in its old fashioned way, but this one-dimensional approach also hinders it from greatness. However, the inclusion of likable Woody Strode in a prominent role well before the Civil Rights movement is indeed praiseworthy.The film runs 91 minutes and was shot in Sea of Japan off the coast of Osaka, although the final lifeboat scene was filmed in Santa Monica, California due to the poisonous jellyfish in the Japanese waters.GRADE: B

"The Last Voyage" is a 1960 film starring Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, George Sanders, Edmond O'Brien and Willy Strode. It's a film of firsts.The ship used as the Claridon was the Isle de France, and that includes the interiors, which the producers partially sunk. After that, the ship, which had been in service for 33 years, was scraped. The Isle de France was part of the rescue of passengers from the Andrea Doria, the first ship on the scene.The story concerns, like the Isle de France, an old ship, the SS Claridon, on his final voyage before retirement after 33 years of service. Unfortunately for the ship, the crew, and the passengers, the ship is ill-equipped to handle a boiler room problem and the ship starts to take on more water than it can handle. The Captain (George Sanders) refuses to listen to reason, believing that his ship is invincible.When fires break out and ceilings start falling, one family is especially affected, the Hendersons (Stack, Malone, and Tammy Manhugh - more on her later). Laura Henderson (Malone) is trapped under debris and can't move, and Jill is trapped on one side of a huge, cavernous hole, and her father is on the other. Henderson desperately tries to find someone on the sinking ship who can assist him in freeing his wife.This is a very exciting and suspenseful film, with great effects and overall good acting, particularly from Sanders, Strode, O'Brien, and Malone. Woody Strode is oiled up, muscular, and has no shirt on - definite eye candy. He plays a compassionate, hard-working man determined to help. Interestingly, Stack, Malone, Sanders, and O'Brien were all best-supporting actor nominees, and all except Stack won.I had a couple of problems with this movie, which is loosely based on the happenings on the Andrea Doria. First of all, when Henderson tries to save Jill, he gets a board and stretches it across the cavernous space. When he tries to crawl on it, it weakens and cracks. Why didn't he just have her crawl to him (which he ultimately does) instead of trying to get to her? And were they then going to cross on that board together? I don't think so.The other problem I had is that Malone, after being in intolerable pain and her legs probably broken and pinned under this steel debris was able to run like hell once she was carried off the boat (which certainly seemed unnecessary in light of later activity) and tread water to the lifeboat.This film was made before all the huge disaster films and does a good job of focusing on the plight of one family that needs aide in the midst of total panic. Also, in 1960, traveling by ocean liner was much more common than it is today, and it was just about to end and be taken over by the jet. So "The Last Voyage" represents a form of travel today used for vacationing, provided the passengers don't get food poisoning and the captain doesn't abandon the ship as it's heading for the rocks.On to the rather annoying daughter, played by Tammy Manhugh. Manhugh was a prolific child actress who retired from show business and became an exotic dancer. She ultimately married a bodybuilder named Rodney Lawson, who was ten years her junior. He was an abusive husband, and in 1996, she shot him in the back. She was sentenced to probation.Totally worth seeing.

I heard once that Andrew Stone and Alfred Hitchcock were friends. If so, I can just imagine those two gents sitting around during a long, rainy evening discussing ways of torturing an audience with suspense."The Last Voyage" cuts to the chase right away. Something happens on board the ocean liner "Claridon" and before you can sing "row, row, row your boat" the vessel is plunged into crisis. No soapy melodramas, bickering couples, singing nuns, etc. Just a good old-fashioned straightforward action flick. There are two stories. One involves the entirely myopic attempt by the captain (George Sanders) to save the ship and his reputation. He's the voice of authority in denial, prevalent in countless movies (where he's challenged by the pragmatic man-of-action). "Jaws" is a prime example.The other story concerns the entrapment of Robert Stack's wife in the film (Dorothy Malone) under a steel beam and his race to save her. Naturally, Stack soon finds himself at odds with the captain as he tries to get help to free his wife, and all kinds of obstacles get in his way. Meanwhile things are getting worse with the ship. The suspense keeps cranking tighter and tighter, as I breathlessly watch and try to convince myself that all will be well in the end - to no avail! Filming on a real ship is what really makes this movie work; in fact, the ship becomes a major character in the story. There's very little suspension of disbelief required. Stone keeps the story moving with dispatch and the ninety minutes fly by quickly. There are a few anomalies that I found problematic (where were the ship's medical staff, and how could the captain be SO intransigent), but these were diminished by the strong emotional elements and the movie's depiction of courage, devotion and loyalty, which were inspiring.I found Dorothy Malone to be particularly moving as the wife who, sensing a hopeless situation, just wants her husband and their kid to get themselves off the ship. It may be that, because I found her to be so sanely practical and REAL, that I kind of fell in love with her. She's the emotional centre of the film.

Andrew and Virginia Stone, the husband and wife creative team who conceived and made the film The Last Voyage had the good fortune to use a real ocean liner in their film. No miniatures for their special effects which got The Last Voyage its only recognition from the Academy.That harbinger of bad luck named Murphy must have been on the passenger roster of the S.S. Claridon which was captained by George Sanders because the law he espoused was operating full tilt on this trans-Pacific voyage. It all starts with fire in the boiler room which leads to a series of bad luck and bad decisions. The story of the doomed ship Claridon proceeds on a double track. There is the story of the ship sinking itself and particularly the clash with Captain Sanders and Engineer Edmond O'Brien. The second is the personal story of Robert Stack who with wife Dorothy Malone and their little girl Tammy Marihugh are traveling to Tokyo for Stack's job. When an explosion occurs both Malone and the little girl are trapped in the cabin. With all that's going on around Stack finds precious little help for his family's personal plight.The Last Voyage is a tightly paced drama which does not waste a second of film frame in the telling of its story. Best in the film I think is Malone who is just brilliant as the woman coming to grips with an impending doom. Honorable mention should also go to Woody Strode who plays a ship's stoker who renders needed assistance to Stack in his hour of trial.The Last Voyage was nominated for Best Special Effects, but lost to the only other film nominated that year, George Pal's The Time Machine. I'd hated to have been an Academy voter that year and have to make that choice.Five years earlier the Andrea Doria disaster had happened only minutes from New York harbor. The stories from that sea disaster were fresh in the public mind, let alone the story of the Titanic.Fifty years after it was released The Last Voyage holds up well and even the technology changes haven't dated this film one bit. This one is highly recommended.