Révolte à bord

This film rather than Shane marks the high point of Alan Ladd's golden Paramount years. By the time Shane was made, Ladd and agent/wife Sue Carol had made the decision to leave Paramount.

Sue picked a good one for her husband in Two Years Before the Mast. It's based on a book of the same title by Richard Henry Dana about his experiences aboard a typical American merchant vessel during the 1840s. Dana is played by Brian Donlevy and it is through his eyes that we see the action unfold.

As the film opens Ladd is the spoiled son of a rich merchant family. While out slumming with some of the 19th century brat pack he hangs out with, Ladd gets shanghaied aboard one of his father's own ships. That ship is commanded by an American version of Captain Bligh in Howard DaSilva.

DaSilva, who's career was to be interrupted by the blacklist shortly, is maybe the best one in this fine cast. He's a career naval officer who was cashiered and he runs his ship that way. Has the crew take gunnery practice even. The essence of that part is that he doesn't see himself as cruel. This is just the way things are at sea.

Barry Fitzgerald, like in the Sea Wolf, plays the ship's cook. But Dooley is 180 degrees different from the weasel Fitzgerald portrayed in The Sea Wolf. Shows his versatility as a player.

Bill Bendix was someone Ladd liked to have in his films if he could get him. He plays the tough, but respected first mate Amazine here. Bendix was in a different class than other character actors. He was a star on radio's and later television's Life of Riley and usually because of that, got roles with some depth. Even when the roles didn't, the talented Mr. Bendix put some depth in them.

The rest of the cast assembled to support Alan Ladd is a good one. Familiar folks like Albert Dekker, Frank Faylen, Luis Van Rooten, Ray Collins fill out their roles nicely.

One part is particularly poignant. Young Darryl Hickman is an office boy in Ladd's father's company and he stows away because he's filled with dreamy adolescent notions about life at sea. Despite all he sees around him and even what happens to him, young Hickman never loses sight of the fact that he's on a great adventure.

Considering the studio origins of the film, Paramount does a very good job in a realistic portrayal of life at sea. If you like sea stories, this one's a must.

When the story begins, a merchant ship has just arrived in Boston and the Captain of this ship has a reputation as a real jerk. That same night, the ship owner's son, Charles (Alan Ladd), is knocked out by a press gang and later awakens on this same ship...forced to become a crewmember on this ship of the damned.

Through the journey, the Captain (Howard De Silva), is a real monster--treating his crew with little respect nor dignity. Over time, the crew begin to die off from scurvy...and yet the captain does nothing to remedy the situation. His only desire is to complete his round the world journey as fast as possible. Eventually it gets so bad that mutiny seems to be the only alternative. What's next?

This film surprised me. At first, I thought it was going to just be another Alan Ladd featured adventure flick...the sort of thing Paramount churned out again and again once he became a star. Instead, I was taken aback by two things. It really was NOT an Alan Ladd film but much more a film with an ensemble cast. It did not rest solely on Ladd's shoulders and the film allowed for several really good performances. De Silva was at his evil best but kudos also to William Bendix, Brian Donlevy, Albert Dekker and young Daryl Hickman. In addition, the film had real depth to it....and was very exciting. It was not just another programmer. Overall, a surprisingly good and exciting adventure film...one I really enjoyed.

It's been years since I read the book but as I remember it there was no Allan Ladd figure in it, a ne'er do well who is shanghaied aboard the cargo ship Pilgrim. There was just Richard Henry Dana who had dropped out of Harvard because of faulty vision and signed aboard because he thought it might help clear his sight. He didn't go back to college but he left an enduring and compelling account of his trip in the 1840s from Boston to the California coast, and his return aboard the Alert.

The record wasn't only accurate. It was colorful and even lyrical. Herman Melville acknowledged it as an inspiration for Moby Dick. It's an amazingly evocative narrative. Dana Point in southern California is named after him. He and his mates stood atop the cliffs and flung cow hides down to the sailors below, to be loaded aboard the ship.

California at the time was a province of Mexico, and places like San Francisco ("Yerba Buena") and Los Angeles were villages surrounded by large Spanish land grants and ranches. Dana was a humanitarian and, coming from New England, an anti-slavery activist. His purpose was to leave an accurate record of the life of sailors aboard American ships, documenting their characters and their mistreatment.

That's about what I remember from the book. The 1946 movie with Allan Ladd seems to owe a good deal to Jack London's "Sea Wolf", the story of a wealthy young shipwreck survivor picked up by a ship and coerced into working as a members of the crew by a captain who was a madman. This skipper, Howard Da Silva, isn't nuts but insists the men carry out his wishes as if they were the word of God. Maybe Captain Bligh was the inspiration here.

Life on the Pilgram is a rough life. Ladd is assigned the most menial of duties on the deck force while a very young stowaway is appointed cook's helper. In terms of working hours, cooks have one of the roughest jobs of all. They don't strain their muscles, as we had to on the deck force of a Coast Guard cutter, USCGC Gresham, but they have to get up before any of the rest of the crew and start preparing breakfast. And they don't stop working until they've finished cleaning up after the last meal of the day, hours after the day workers have stopped.

The deck force is no picnic either. Everyone on my ship knew the story (possibly "fake news") of the boatswain's mate on a neighboring ship who slapped a seaman across the face and gave him a bloody nose, then made him get on his knees and holystone the blood off the wooden deck. The Chief BM on the Gresham went no farther than raising fist over me and threatening to belt me. Oh, it was rough duty. The blond young Swedish maids helped ease the pain.

Where was I? Yes, no sea duty today compares to what these guys go through -- twenty lashes for looking cross-eye at an officer, and so forth. What's always puzzled me is, if they're going to administer lashes, why do they always rip the shirt down his back? Why not ask him to take it off? Brian Donlevy plays Richard Henry Dana, writing the book in his spare time.

The book, as I say, was a literary gem. Dana captured the experience of working on a sailing ship, including the floggings and the scurvy. (Viz: "Limeys.") Beyond that he gave us treats on landfalls, storms, and ice bergs. Da Silva is the uncompromising and humorless captain. William Bendix is the brutal First Mate Amazeen who gets to belt Ladd on the face. If the producers needed someone to beat hell out of Ladd, more than once it was Bendix. The two men were friends, despite a temporary falling out over Ladd's lack of interest in enlisting during the war.

In Pernambuco, the Pilgrim acquires a passenger -- a beautiful young woman, what else? Compare this to The Sea Wolf, which also picks up a pretty young girl and Jack London's prose turns to mush. Actually, here, Esther Fernández as the requisite romantic role, is quite attractive and gives a respectable performance. Her career flourished in her native Mexico.

I don't think I'll give away the ending except to say there is a violent clash, some deaths, and a victory of sorts. You'll probably enjoy the move. It's aglow with resentment and tension.

This is a movie to see to get a feel for what it must have been like back in the "good old days" of tall ships and iron men. Lemme tell ya, the cruise ships of today are as far from "sailing" as a toy poodle is from a wolf.

This is one of my favorite movies, Alan Ladd is wonderful as the spoiled rich boy, while Howard Da Silva as the ruthless captain only interested in setting a new record around Cape Horn creates a new high-water mark for callousness. (What's with sea captains in Hollywood movies, anyway? If it's not the bumbling incompetence of Bogart's Queeg it's the cold heartlessness of Trevor Howard and Charles Laughton's Captain Bligh.) The stowaway kid (Darryl Hickman) is a bit over-the-top I admit, but it seems they all were in movies made back then. Speaking of back then, this baby is in black-and-white, and although some of the scenes in the various waterfront bars and in the hold of the ship benefit thereby, the outdoor scenes suffer a bit because of it. And speaking of outdoor scenes, they really didn't put much of the budget into special effects, as the boat looks exactly like what it is, a toy bobbing around in someone's bathtub.

Still, that's not why people love this movie. It's the fascination of watching Alan Ladd's Charles Stewart transformed from rich, obnoxious playboy into deeply affected human being as he watches the massive cruelty and abuse around him. The cruelty and virtual slavery of these sailors is portrayed with an unflinching eye, and you're cheering along with them when the final confrontation unfolds. As someone wiser than me observed, "Going to sea is going to jail, with a chance at drowning besides."

The press gang of the "Pilgrim" recruits a crew and the ship sets sail. Captain Thompson (Howard Da Silva) is only concerned with breaking speed records and has First Mate Amazeen (William Bendix) and Second Mate Foster (Luis Van Rooten) as his side-kicks to run discipline with a rod of iron. There are floggings, rations, neglect and heartless sea burials on his journey. The crew who suffer include Charles Stewart (Alan Ladd), Henry Dana (Brian Donlevy) and Brown (Albert Dekker). Dana keeps an incident log which will change merchant sea law forever. It becomes published and is called "Two Years Before The Mast"

This is a true-life account of conditions at the time and is based upon a book that introduced maritime law. The cast are all good - Howard Da Silva makes an excellent bad guy. I don't usually like children in films but the stowaway Sam Hooper (Daryl Hickman) isn't as annoying as I feared he might be, and his inclusion in the story has relevance in how the crew relate to Charles. Indeed, he also brings out a human side to Mr Amazeen. However, I am not sure what the point of having the 2 passengers was - the film dragged whenever Maria (Esther Fernandez) was on screen. It was good to watch Charles's transformation from a dislikeable oik to a man with a conscience. There were also some humorous moments thrown in, eg, when Charles goes back to eat the chicken he has stolen in front of the crew that hate him. It's a good film but I never understand the point in scrubbing the decks. What's that about?