Schiffbruch der Seelen

Here is a film that inexplicably has been given little exposure to modern audiences. Paramount threw in a lot of its top talent to tell a good story with drama, humor and lots of action.

Nuggin Taylor (Cooper) has waged a one-man war against slaves ships in the 1840s. His best friend Powdah (Raft) has been a slaver, if a half-hearted one, for years. The two board a packet from Liverpool to America in a plot to undermine the slave shipping lines, but also on board is their main nemesis and his sister. Naturally Taylor has a "thing" for the sister. When a tragic accident befalls the ship, Taylor must take drastic action to save passengers and is ultimately charged with multiple murders.

Cooper again plays the aw-shucks persona he perfected but here combines it with the literate, committed character of Nuggin. Note that in the lengthy opening sequence he says nothing, but is the center point of every word. Raft, who was always at his best for Henry Hathaway, gets crimped hair and an earring and the package works for the uneducated, footloose Powdah, who is ironically terrified of water. Raft's trademark unblinking stare is used to great effect and even humor. Copper and Raft, who sing together so pleasantly here, remained good friends after making this film.

The picture took three photographers. Estimable Charles Lang split the cinematography duties with Merritt Gerstad. Gordon Jennings was in charge of the special photographic effects in the climactic ship disaster. Their decisions were mostly excellent. Especially effective were the constant tilted angles aboard ship. The black-and-white filming offers up rich tones and texture, instantly setting the stage with the slave cargo sequence. The action scenes are outstandingly photographed and executed.

In period pieces, Hollywood tends to go overboard with layers of decorations. In 'Souls at Sea' art directors Hans Dreier and Roland Anderson are magnificently restrained and very accurate. That and A.E. Freudeman's interior decoration make the film seem really in Philadelphia, really in Liverpool and really on board a ship in 1842.

This is a great example of Hathaway's work, weaving appropriate humor into the human drama and relationships. There is an amusing montage as Taylor is scouring Liverpool for Powdah, and that relationship's integrity is maintained throughout.

This is a classic well worth making the effort to find.

It's a given that captains of cruise liners have a sworn duty to protect their passengers in case of any emergency, and their safety is paramount to any other concerns. Unfortunately, it hasn't always been the case. August 1937's "Souls at Sea," starring Gary Cooper, is based on the 1841 sinking of the 'William Brown,' a packet ship that hit an iceberg, sending its passengers scurrying into two lifeboats. Trouble was, one of the lifeboats became extremely overloaded, causing members of the ship's crew to toss some passengers over the side to avoid sinking the packed boat.

"This obscure film is so wonderful because (George) Raft and Cooper are dynamite together," gushed film reviewer Dennis Schwartz. "So who knew both laconic actors could be so animated and such a joy to watch together!"

Henry Hathaway directed this seafaring tragedy as Paramount Picture's version of MGM's 1935 "Mutiny on the Bounty." Cooper's character, Michael Taylor, is first seen in a courtroom listening to his verdict of guilty of murder for shooting at several desperate passengers clinging to the lifeboat. In the movie, the 'William Brown' sinks from a fire started by a young girl accidentally knocking over an oil lamp. Taylor takes charge of the lifeboat that's becoming swamped by too many survivors in the middle of the ocean. He feels he needs to take action or else everyone will drown. After the verdict was read, a British Navy official pointed out that his heroic actions on the lifeboat saved lives. He also added Taylor's work as an undercover abolitionist assisting the English in thwarting the illegal African slave trade to the United States should also be considered and the jurists should suspend his sentence.

"Souls At Sea" highlights details from the 1842 Supreme Court case United States vs. Holmes. After the 'William Brown' sinking where 12 passengers were forced out of the lifeboat by the ship's crew and drowned, only one crewman on the lifeboat, Alexander Holmes, was found in Philadelphia to stand trial. He was indicted for murder, but the jury came back with a less severe manslaughter verdict, sending the case all the way to the Supreme Court. The court ruled the crew's paramount duty was to the save the passengers, and if there were any life-threatening sacrifices to be made, the crew should go first.

"Souls at Sea" contains a flashback involving a series of romantic interests. Navy Lieutenant Stanley (Henry Wilcoxon), captain of the 'William Brown' secretly works for slave traders. Stanley and Taylor eventually come to blows, even though the abolitionist has fallen in love with the captain's sister, Margaret (Frances Dee). George Raft, as Taylor's buddy, Powdah, is also romantically linked to another woman on board, Babsie (Olympe Bradna).

One event related to "Souls at Sea" may have inspired the 1937 movie "A Star Is Born" which involved John Bowers. The former silent movie star, unemployed in Hollywood since 1931, was one of many actors unable to make the transition to sound. He had worked with Henry Hathaway in the past and knew the director was filming scenes for "Souls at Sea" off the shore of Catalina Island. Hoping to get a walk-in role, Bowers rented a small 16-foot sailboat to meet Hathaway, only to receive a firm rejection from him. He was last spotted sailing on his small boat away from the island, never to be seen alive. His body washed up on the Santa Monica beach, presumably from suicide, a fate Norman Maine suffered as he walked into the ocean at the conclusion of "A Star Is Born."

"Souls At Sea" was labeled 'artistically valuable' by the German government, one of the few Hollywood movies that Joseph Goebbels, the minister of propaganda, promoted for the increasingly restrictive country's movie import market. The Nazis' thinking followed the Aryan race philosophy that some groups of people had to be sacrificed for the good and the advancement of the German nation. The Paramount motion picture received three Academy Award nominations, including Best Assistant Director (Hal Walker) (in its last year as a category), Best Art Direction (Hans Dreier and Roland Anderson), and Best Music Scoring (Boris Morros).

I was hoping for a melodrama instead, but the emphasis here is on the narrative rather than on action. But I am pleased to report that my headline is accurate, because "Souls At Sea" is a very interesting story about a subject barely touched upon in Hollywood's long, colorful history. Reading through other reviewers takes on the film, it qualifies more accurately as a semi-historical drama, although not the first story Hollywood has taken liberties with. The temptation is to call "Souls At Sea" a 'seafaring yarn', but, as I said, it is heavy on talk and light on second unit work.

In any case, this offbeat movie has Gary Cooper faced with a moral dilemma as an abolitionist involved in the slave trade in the middle of the 19th century. His sidekick is George Raft, in as sympathetic a role as he ever had and one of his best acting jobs (never one of his strong points). Frances Dee is an ingenue on board the ship in question, and George Zucco plays a good guy for a change. Particularly effective is the background music which won an AA nomination for composer Milan Roder. Henry Wilcoxon is an effective bad guy and Olympe Bradna, whose film appearances were too few, is touching as a maidservant and love interest for George Raft.

Very well done, as is the norm with a Henry Hathaway picture. The story is so absorbing that the viewer nearly forgets about the lack of action scenes, and is well worth my rating of seven.

I never really found Gary Cooper to be the most invigorating of actors, but he delivers well here in this tale of maritime treachery. We start at a trial where he ("Nuggin") is being indicted for the killing of survivors from a seaborne disaster in the mid 1800s. It's while the evidence is being given that we are taken back on a retrospective of just how this honourable seaman found himself caught up, with his friend "Powdah" (George Raft) in the evil machinations of "Tarryton" (Henry Wilcoxon). When the boat he was travelling on manages to hit an iceberg, he is left to take charge. As usual there aren't enough spaces on the life boats so panic ensues, and a fairly "survival of the fittest" one at that, the results of which result in his current predicament. How to prove his innocence? Well that might lie in the hands of "Woodley" (George Zucco) who is working for the British Government on a mission to finally eradicate slavery, and who knows a thing or two about the real character of "Nuggin". It's a tautly directed adventure for the first half with plenty of duplicity going on, but when his relationship with "Margaret" (Frances Dee) starts to take a more prominent role in the story, we head into a rather disappointing form of 1930s soapdom. Raft tries his best and in many ways reminded me of Robert Newton but his loyal and decent character is sadly underused whilst the more interesting and perilous anti-slavery storyline becomes a little too subsumed amidst the lace and umbrellas. It's still a film that's well paced for the most part and one that makes you realise that the abolition of slavery in itself didn't actually halt this odious practice in the United States. There were still plenty of officials complicit in this lucrative activity.

Everything is excellent here. Gary Cooper makes one of his great character roles of double depths, George Raft makes for once a great contribution, all the characters are natural and organic, the realism is magnificent, the glory of the era of the sailing ships is enhanced and lifted out of the screen, and even the music is perfect, with many glorious moments of innovation and good humour, and the quality of the drama, both human and natural, is undeniable in its realisation with a formidable shipwreck to crown the masterpiece. Henry Hathaway knew his business thoroughly, he never committed mistakes, and this is just one of his many masterpieces.