Such a frustrating disappointment

Excellent but underrated film

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Good grief, what were editors Tom Priestley and Desmond Saunders doing when they compiled Voyage of the Damned? The film ended up being two and a half hours, and it easily could have been ninety minutes. Each scene was painfully slow; each shot could have been cut shorter or eliminated to get to the meat of the movie quicker.I could say that without the slow pacing of the film it would have been entertaining, but not only is that a useless "what if", but it wouldn't be true. Most of the acting in this film is extremely over-the-top, from the leads to the extras in the background. It's a true story about the "good will" voyage in 1939, during which Germany sent 937 Jewish refugees to Cuba, and the disasters the political climate took on the passengers. As in all disaster movies, there's an all star cast with equally brief screen times, giving the audience a taste of their various plights to make them endearing. Faye Dunaway, Oskar Werner, Lee Grant, Sam Wanamaker, Lynne Frederick, Wendy Hiller, Luther Adler, Julie Harris, Maria Schell, Nehemiah Persoff, and many others make up the passenger list; Max Von Sydow, Helmut Griem, and Malcom McDowell are the featured members of the crew. In Cuba, other movie stars provide cameos, including Orson Welles, Ben Gazzara, Katharine Ross, Denholm Elliott, Jose Ferrer, and James Mason. The basic premise of the story is interesting from a historical perspective, about the bigwigs in Cuba, the United States, and Germany, but those portions of the film are brief compared to the different families' on the ship screen time. With exception to the absolutely adorable romance between Lynne Frederick and Malcom McDowell, everyone else on board irritated me to no end. As sweet and darling as the young couple were, they didn't take up two and a half hours and therefore couldn't save the movie. The characters who were supposed to evoke the most sympathy, like Lee Grant who earned an Oscar nomination, were the most annoying. There were many scenes that were written to make the audience cry, and I didn't even get a lump in my throat. In short, this movie is incredibly boring and overrated. If you insist on watching it, make sure you have something else handy, like a doodle pad or someone entertaining to talk to, because you'll need it.

An ambitious effort to tell the true story of SS St.Louis in May-June 1939 on a cruise to Cuba with only Jewish German passengers as a Nazi propaganda display in all its polyphonic complexity, has above all succeeded in rendering and making the horrible sadness about it real. Sam Wanamaker takes the lead as the most desperate of them all, who, when it becomes clear that they were sent to Cuba only to be returned to certain death in Germany, tries to kill himself jumping over board, while Max von Sydow stands for some uprightness and honor in a hopeless situation, Oskar Werner and Faye Dunaway make a nice couple of some refinement and elegance but with their integrity sadly lost, Orson Welles dominates the corruption in Havana, Ben Gazzara is the indefatigable fighter for some human rights where there are none, and we have the tragedy of the steward (Malcolm McDowell) and his tragic love, and of course the Nazi villains, apart form other outstanding actors like James Mason, Julie Harris, Maria Schell, Wendy Hiller, Jonathan Pryce, Katharine Ross, Denholm Elliott as Admiral Canaris and many others. Still the film is not overloaded with stardom, but they are all almost discreet, dwarfed by the overwhelming tragedy of the drama situation. What adds very much to the quality of the film is how the music is composed - the very sensitive and adequate but still discreet music of Lalo Schifrin is contrasted with very typical and catchy dance music of the times, Cuban rumbas, Glenn Miller, Strauss waltzes and things like that, illustrating the grotesqueness of the cruel Nazi practical joke on ordinary and innocent Jewish Germans who are kept completely unknowing of what grim play they are being used in. The film is very conscientiously made in an evident effort to strike at the completeness of the indescribable sadness of the inhuman fake luxury cruise, which effort definitely has succeeded.

Based on a true incident Voyage Of The Damned is the story of a select group of Jews picked from concentration camps that had not yet turned into slaughterhouses and allowed to depart Germany to Cuba where ostensibly they will stay and try to later immigrate to the USA. The problem is that they will never be allowed to land in Havana, it's all just a propaganda ploy to show how other nations don't want these people because they are insidious troublemakers by nature and the Nazis can then justify anything they do to them.Hitler was not a fool on this, he knew well the American system of immigration with its quotas and percentages and the way it was put in place as a backlash against foreigners in the Twenties. To its everlasting shame the USA put this into affect the result being millions of people dying. This from a country whose greatest strength was its immigrant population uncounted millions in this country enjoy its benefits because our ancestors came here from a variety of places for refuge and for opportunity.So these people filled with hopes and dreams take passage in the hopes of avoiding the slaughter to come. What happens to them collectively and individually is the story of Voyage Of The Damned.The Germans are not shown as stereotypes either which is a major strength this film has. They range from a humane captain who is Max Von Sydow to Malcolm McDowell as his personal orderly who is marked for tragedy when he falls for the daughter of one of the refugee families and starts seeing things in a new light to Helmut Griem who is the official Nazi party representative on the ship and who challenges successfully Von Sydow's authority as captain.Our laws being what they were and with isolationist sentiment as it was in May of 1939 a case could be made for not officially granting the ship landing clearance. We see our own Coast Guard cutter warning the German ship not to land or even enter our territorial waters. A few winks and nods and they could have. Or some pressure could be brought to bare on the Cuban government which in fact was our client state which never happened. The Cubans like Jose Ferrer and Orson Welles and Fernando Rey are shown to be eminently corruptible. One played by James Mason is most assuredly not and he intervenes in one very poignant case involving some children on the boat being reunited with their father.The refugees much like the smaller unit that inhabited that attic where Anne Frank's refugee extended family took place are a wide cross section of Jewish Germany. One, Lee Grant was given an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, but it seems not fair to have just singled her out. Oskar Werner, Faye Dunaway, Sam Wanamaker, Wendy Hiller, and Luther Adler are all equally memorable. And Ben Gazzara has the most straightforward role as a representative of the American Jewish Committee in the film. He functions like Richard Widmark the prosecutor in Judgment At Nuremberg, the voice of conscience as he tries to raise money to essentially buy officials in the Cuban government. Voyage Of The Damned has worn well over time and it's something to be seen and seen again. And it's quite a condemnation of our Twenties immigration laws still largely in effect. Funny in the 19th century there was never an issue over illegal aliens, we took whatever we got. Maybe we can't return to the days of my grandparents coming here, but we have to do better than we have.

This is a really remarkable film of great importance. It concerns the voyage of an ocean liner from Hamburg in Germany to Cuba, loaded with Jews who have bought their way out of the Nazi nightmare by paying money to Heinrich Himmler. The voyage across the Atlantic is long and slow, with much drama taking place on the way. But when the ship reaches Cuba, the Jews are not allowed to disembark after all, and the whole voyage turns out to have been a 'set-up', a cover for a military cargo arrangement. The film has an all-star cast of prominent film actors of the 1970s. There are so many of them it almost seems as if the whole of Hollywood tried to squeeze into the cast list. The stars include Faye Dunaway, Orson Welles, James Mason, Max von Sydow as the ship's captain, Jose Ferrer, Julie Harris, Oscar Werner in his last film, Maria Schell, Wendy Hiller (who is marvellous, as always), Sam Wanamaker, Ben Gazzara, and the list goes on. Some of these stars appear only fleetingly, between decks as it were, and others have real parts. Some like Orson Welles and Fernando Rey are even on land, and not at sea at all. (After all various diplomats in capital cities have to be seen debating whether to save the Jews or not, or the story would have no context.) Some of the younger stars of the day such as Katharine Ross, Lynne Frederick, and Malcolm McDowell are now largely forgotten as 'names', but were 'big' then. In his first feature film role, Jonathan Pryce is spectacular. Supporting actors like Lee Grant, Victor Spinetti and Luther Adler were familiar then but few now remember them at all, despite the many roles they played on countless occasions, so that everyone at least knew their faces. The film was directed by Stuart Rosenberg and was based on a best-selling novel, which in turn was based upon the notorious real events which actually happened and were an international scandal. The name of the ship was the S.S. St. Louis, and there were 937 Jewish passengers aboard. I cannot reveal the ending of the film or the fate of these passengers, but the historical remarks under 'Trivia' in the IMDb entry add information which partially corrects details of the facts as portrayed in the film.