Gefährliche Überfahrt

This movie is a nice, tense little b/w thriller, set aboard a transatlantic passenger liner headed to England. Jeanne Crain plays a new bride; her husband immediately goes missing after boarding the ship in New York, leaving her in a state of panic as she can not convince the ship's crew or passengers that he even exists. Suspicions rise as a hint of her mental unstability comes to light, and bits of her past are made known. Questionable characters lurk around every dark corner of the ship during the fog-enshrouded crossing, offering an atmosphere of doubt and danger. Jeanne Crain portrays the sheltered, distressed young woman with an ideal sensitivity, and Britsh actor Michael Rennie is especially effective as the ship's doctor who treats her with thoughtful compassion. I enjoyed the shipbound suspense of this movie, particularly the scenes where the young lady tries to conduct her own investigation, searching the darkened decks in spite of her overwhelming fear and despair. The cast is good, the direction tight, and the mystery unravels without any dead spots to cool your interest. As a side note, did any actor ever look better in uniform than tall Michael Rennie?

"Dangerous Crossing" is based on a story (actually a radio play) by John Dickson Carr, the master of the locked room mystery. But there's no locked room and the mystery is more in the vein of Cornell Woolrich, arguably the "father" of film noir. As in some of Woolrich's best tales, the story begins with a sudden twist of fate. Moments after Jeanne Crain as a new bride boards a luxury liner on her honeymoon, the groom vanishes. No one has seen him. Their stateroom is listed as unoccupied. Even Michael Rennie as the sympathetic ship's doctor (who's clearly smitten by her) suspects that her missing husband is a figment of her imagination. Still, there are some very odd people skulking the boat's fog-shrouded decks -- and when the answer comes, it's ingenious. Thankfully, the movie was made in the early 1950s so there was no problem bringing it in at a swift 75 minutes. Today, it would be padded out to the requisite two hours and the suspense would escape like air from a punctured tire. Credit Joseph Newman with smart direction (including an opening dockside scene worthy of Michael Curtiz,) making maximum use of the sets Fox built to serve as the Titanic. In short, a thoroughly entertaining grade B thriller.

"Husbands can get lost so easily," someone tells Jeanne Crain's character in the 1953 Fox thriller "Dangerous Crossing," and boy, do those words ever prove prophetic! Here, Crain plays Ruth Stanton, a wealthy heiress who departs on a honeymoon cruise after a whirlwind courtship. When her husband (Carl Betz, who most baby boomers will recognize as Dr. Alex Stone from the old "Donna Reed Show") disappears from the ship before they even leave the NYC harbor, Ruth becomes distraught...especially since no one on board, including the ship's doctor (sympathetically played by Michael Rennie), will believe the story that her husband ever existed! What follows is a tale of escalating suspense and paranoia, with no one on the ship seemingly worthy of Ruth's--or our--complete trust. While not precisely a film noir, "Dangerous Crossing" certainly does have its noirish aspects, and the scene in which Ruth searches the boat for her husband at night, in a dense mist, the only background sound being the intermittent blare of the ship's foghorn, is one that all fans of the genre should just love. Jeanne, very much the star of this film and appearing in virtually every scene, looks absolutely gorgeous, of course (the woman had one of the most beautiful faces in screen history, sez me), and her thesping here is top notch. She is given any number of stunning close-ups by veteran cinematographer Joseph Lashelle, who years before had lensed that classiest of film noirs, 1944's "Laura." In one of the DVD's surprisingly copious collection of extras, it is revealed that the picture took only 19 days to produce, at a cost of only $500,000; a remarkably efficient production, resulting in a 75-minute film with no excess flab and a sure-handed way of delivering shudders and suspense. Very much recommended.

Before I even saw the first scene of this very good mystery I was pretty sure that I would like it because it was adapted from a story by John Dickson Carr. In my opinion, he was the dean of mystery writers, specializing in the genre that gives us the stylish murder in the sealed room and similar types of "impossible" crimes.

This time, Ms. Crane is a woman who has been married for only a few hours. Her and her new husband are taking an ocean voyage for their honeymoon. But, the husband goes to see the purser, telling his wife that he will meet her in the ships' dining room. Since this is a Carr story the husband, naturally, disappears and most of the rest of the movie finds Ms. Crane trying to convince the ships' crew that her husband did indeed board the ship with her and has vanished. Of course, everyone claims to have not seen her husband board with her and she is thought of as a mental case. But, as the movie unfolds, the ships' doctor, played by Michael Rennie, begins to think that there may be truth to her story. From the start, it's obvious that at least one crew member is part of a nefarious plot and that Ms. Crane is in grave danger. But, which crew member, or members, are part of the plot? The movie is well paced and comes to a satisfying conclusion.

All in all, I found it to be most enjoyable.

Ruth (Jeanne Crain) and John (Carl Betz) board a ship for their honeymoon. However, within 15 minutes of sailing, John has disappeared. Not only has he disappeared but there has never been any trace of him and there are no witnesses that have seen the couple together. The room that they originally booked into is now empty and only Ruth's suitcases seem to be located on board - in a different room! So begins the mystery. The film follows Ruth's attempts to locate her husband while we are introduced to a suspicious cast of characters. No-one believes her story and even the confidante that she finds in Dr Paul Manning (Michael Rennie) has his doubts. She receives a phone call in her cabin from John saying that they are both in danger.......

The film gets you involved from the beginning and you know that something sinister is occurring. The various characters are introduced to us - eg, stewardess Anna (Mary Anderson), single traveller Kay (Marjorie Hoshelle), steward Jim (Casey Adams) and a foreign passenger with a walking stick (Karl Ludwig Lindt) - and we are never quite sure what is in the back of their minds. Even Dr manning is not above suspicion. The fog horn that continually sounds adds to the tension in the night scenes and it is a well acted film by all.