La vengeance des mutins

Despite Oscar winner Broderick Crawford and nominees James Mason, Dorothy Dandridge, Stuart Whitman, and Jack Kruschen, this 84 minute amateurish production is excruciatingly long and dull and badly acted. This may be based on a real story but this production is among the worst films I've ever seen---and I've seen thousands of films. And all the acting is dreadful. It seems like they're making is up as they go along. Stupid dialog, ridiculous situations, and dumb characters make this a total waste of time. Laughable from the very opening, this turkey goes on and on and on until the foolish ending. I cannot believe such good actors as Mason and Crawford got stuck in this bilge. Dandridge comes off like a cartoon and Whitman is witless. David Cross, Hank Patterson, Barney Phillips, and Katherine Bard also appear to no advantage. This project should have been scuttled before the cameras started.

Forget the advertising tagline (although Dorothy Dandridge is beautiful to look at)! This is a crisp little thriller, apparently fact-based, about a couple of malcontent seamen (Crawford and Whitman) who try to foment a mutiny against new captain Mason as a cover for a scheme to kill the entire crew and bring in the ship as salvage. Except for a rather abrupt ending, nicely done by the Stones.

A new captain takes command of his first ship only to find himself confronted with numerous problems. First there is hostility from his Chief Mate, who feels that he has been passed over for command, and from some of the crew who agree. Then there is the inflammatory presence of a woman steward, signed on at the last moment to replace a crew member who jumped ship. Worst of all is a somewhat ludicrous mutiny plot perpetrated by a couple of the engine room crew to murder the entire crew and take over the ship.

Although the plot is supposedly based on a true story the tension fails to the level that it might have done, which is probably attributable to the director rather than the cast. However, give the film full marks for it's shipboard atmosphere, which is certainly highly authentic, thanks to the fact that it was filmed aboard a couple of real merchant ships. The scenes on the bridge of Matson Line's old SS Mariposa are played pretty much as they would have been in real life, as are the subsequent scenes shot on board the freighter, which is almost certainly a Liberty Ship, of which many were still around at the time this film was made. Perhaps the only detail of the freighter that doesn't ring true is the fact that she is riding much higher in the water than she normally would have been because, since the ship was being used as a movie prop, she was obviously carrying no cargo or ballast, and very little fuel.

The Decks Ran Red flaps as the title under which sets sail a tense and focused movie that takes place aboard a freighter. The Berwind sails into port in New Zealand because its captain has mysteriously died. Awarded his first command, James Mason flies in to take over as skipper of the troubled ship. He finds a slovenly and insubordinate crew, and his officers tell him that mutiny may be in the wind.

Since some of the hands have jumped ship, Mason has some holes to fill. The only cook available will sign on only if he can bring his wife, Dorothy Dandridge (as a Maori whose command of the English language encompasses even the future-perfect tense). This sultry native, the only woman on board, doesn't cool down the smouldering unrest, but the arsonist is Broderick Crawford, who fuels the fires in order to advance his own half-baked scheme: To murder all the crew but a few henchmen, making it look like desertion and mutiny, then scuttle the ship and sell it and its cargo as salvage for $1-million.

It's basically an old dark house story taken to the high seas, with murders aplenty and the briny deep to swallow up the corpses. And, despite Mason, Crawford and Dandridge, its production values are not those of The Titanic. Still, it sails brisky along (slackening a bit toward the stretched-out ending) under Andrew Stone's competent if lackluster direction.

Stone and his wife Virginia were Hollywood's answer to the mama-papa candy store: He wrote and directed, she produced and edited. Their long career resulted in many forgettable films and some embarrassments as well (Song of Norway, for one). But there were a few modest successes, too: Highway 301, The Night Holds Terror, Blueprint for Murder. The Decks Ran Red can join them as a decidedly not luxurious but still seaworthy vessel.

First time watching and I was captivated throughout. I'm not sure why attention was given to Dorothy Dandridge as hers seemed like a small part. Very brutal but believable plot given that anything could happen on the open sea. I especially liked the scene of the ship intending to ram the lifeboat. It was a great camera angle and one actor uses sailor jargon like, "she's really got a bone in her teeth". I was also amused by the hip lingo used by the actors. Crawford reminds me of a ratpacker no matter what film he is in. I was wondering if anyone could tell me what ship(s) was used in the film for the interior and exterior shots? It looks like a Liberty Ship I took a cruise on, the S.S. Jeremiah O'Brien.