El viaje de los condenados

Despite the fact that this film had three Oscar nominations, and several Golden Globe nominations with one win (Katharine Ross), and a boatload of stars, it is not worth watching so much for it's quality (marginal) but for the story of how we knew what was happening to the Jews before World War II and did little to stop it.

This is the story of 937 Jews that were put on a boat to Havana with useless documents, as the German government had no intention of letting them off the ship. They were denied entry into Cuba, and the US also denied them entry before they finally were saved by a social service agency and allowed to land in Belgium. Of course, that would prove ultimately fatal for two-thirds of them as the war started just two months later.

Why would Germany do this? Simple. By sending a ship of Jews to the America's and having them turned away, they negated any right the US would have to complain when they started exterminating Jews. Clever of them, and our government fell right into their trap. Our support for Israel is not so much that we love the Jews, but a massive guilt for our participation in their extermination.

There were some great performances in this otherwise mediocre film: Lee Grant and Katherine Ross; some good performances: Ben Gazzara, Faye Dunaway; and the film debut of Jonathan Pryce (POTC 1. 2. & 3, Tomorrow Never Dies).

Check it out.

"Voyage of the Damned" is the true story of a shipload of German Jews fleeing Nazi persecution in 1939 by seeking refuge in Cuba; the Cuban government waffles and won't let them in; sadly, neither will the United States; and the ship is forced to return to Europe.

Knowing that the voyage of the St. Louis actually happened deepens the impact of the film; while the movie itself is rather perfunctorily directed, the incredible all-star cast keeps the film very human and touching.

Lee Grant received the only Oscar nomination of the cast--her hair-cutting scene was obvious Oscar-bait if there ever was one--but she still conveys considerable pathos. Nevertheless, I was considerably more moved by the performances of Max von Sydow and Oskar Werner. Von Sydow portrays the captain of the St. Louis, attempting to keep the calm in an undeniably tense situation, growing ever more subtly aghast as the events unfold around him. Werner is his counterpoint among the passengers, an esteemed Jewish doctor and educator, seemingly serene in the face of such horror, but methodically determining what to do. Faye Dunaway plays Werner's embittered wife and her commanding charisma and beauty are at full wattage. Malcolm McDowell is rather endearingly miscast as a ship's steward who has a romance with Grant's daughter. Katharine Ross turns up briefly and gives one of the best performances of her career.

"Voyage of the Damned" may not be brilliant cinema, but it is an unforgettable story filled with an amazing cast and I highly recommend it.

This film details a very dark chapter in U.S. (in fact, World) history. As a propaganda tactic, to attempt to dismiss the notion that they were committing genocide, WWII Germany fills a cruise ship with Jewish citizens and sends them off to Cuba, purportedly so that they can be free. Unfortunately, Cuba will not allow the passengers to disembark, nor will the United States and so the ship must turn back, thus becoming the voyage of the damned. The cast is jam packed with stars of the day and most of them are great. Among the standouts are Von Sydow as the Captain--a pawn in the political game, McDowell as a sympathetic crewman, Dunaway as an aloof, glamorous German married to a Jew (Werner), Wanamaker as a desperate, concerned victim of circumstance and Ross (in one of her most heartfelt roles) as the daughter of two of the passengers. Most notable are Pryce & Koslo, unforgettably vulnerable as concentration camp escapees and Grant as the emotionally stunned wife of Wanamaker. Dunaway and Oscar-nominated Grant share the film's most memorable scene as Grant becomes unhinged by the events around her. The film has a sense of cruelty and dread, even if one is not aware of the outcome, and it can be painful to behold, but this is a story that needs to be told and the drama is, at times, quite compelling. Certainly the cast of familiar faces makes it easy to take. Bloated, cue-card-reading Welles is one drawback, but fortunately, he is not on screen long.

Nazi atrocities hang over the heads of some 937 Jewish refugees who are allowed to board the S.S. St. Louis in Hamburg, Germany, bound for Havana in 1939, but corrupt Cuban dignitaries (and apathetic other countries) manage to find unjust legalities which prevent the ocean-liner from docking. Dramatized true account with a star-studded cast filling the roles of the passengers (professors, lawyers, teachers, one rabbi, a Nazi spy, at least two children, a Christian ship's captain, and Faye Dunaway, looking wonderfully turned-out as the wife of a frustrated doctor). With anti-Semitism making a wave through Havana, nobody there is anxious to take on the Jews (they are looked on as charity cases), but the personalities in these excursions are static at best, with Ben Gazzara playing a globe-trotting businessman attempting to bargain on behalf of the voyagers (he seems to come from a different film altogether). Produced (or, one may say, packaged) by '70s tycoon Sir Lew Grade, the proceedings verge on the edge of disaster-movie clichés (with the appearance and the pacing of a television mini-series). The material warrants attention, but the melodrama inherent in the situation continually falters--gummed up with ungainly issues, overdrawn hysteria (Sam Wanamaker's suicide attempt), flagrant sentiment (Katharine Ross' Havana prostitute), and thuggish violence (it's bad enough that the two male teachers--scrawny and with their heads shaved--have been through hell, this narrative gives them more of the same, which is about as entertaining as watching victims at a firing squad). Dunaway, coolly regal and ice-pack gorgeous, approaches her part like visiting royalty, and gives the film a little goose. **1/2 from ****

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.