A Náu dos Condenados

I recall catching this as a kid on local TV, a screening which, most probably, came about via the personal print of the film-buff sexton who calls over a number of friends, me included, from time to time to his private home theater in order to share in his vast movie collection on 16 and 35mm. Based on a book by the authors behind "Mutiny On The Bounty", this follows a very similar path – with a ship's crew at the mercy of a martinet captain (James Mason basically returning to the kind of role which had made him a star in his homeland); his opposition is led by medical student(!) Alan Ladd (typically dour) who's actually one of the many prisoners bound for exile in far-away Australia, among whom is also leading lady Patricia Medina (predictably, over the course of the film, she also becomes a personal object of contention between the two male stars).

Despite such imposing credentials as scriptwriter Jonathan Latimer and director Farrow, the film perhaps fails to rise consistently above the routine – not even with such unusual plot points as Mason's adoption of a banned form of punishment (keel-hauling); during the latter stages, then – as the company sets ashore, and we also get to meet Governor Sir Cedric Hardwicke – the film tends to lose the initial momentum of the ship-board brutality. Suffice it to say that the film I watched just prior to it, CARTOUCHE (1962; with Jean-Paul Belmondo and Claudia Cardinale) was over 20 minutes longer but seemed to me to have moved at a much quicker pace! Even so, BOTANY BAY remains a good example of the colorful entertainment they used to churn out in the old days, given an extra edge by Mason's compelling portrayal (which, if anything, suggests that he'd have made a marvelous Captain Bligh).

For the record, John Farrow directed Alan Ladd for the fifth and last time here after what looks like a run of mostly unassuming action potboilers: CHINA (1943), the equally seafaring TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST (1946), CALCUTTA (1947) and BEYOND GLORY (1948). It must be said here that, locally, Alan Ladd was a very popular film star with my father's generation and, apart from the immortal Western SHANE (1953), it's a pity that he seems to have been undeservedly forgotten with the passage of time.

P.S. Useless bit of trivia: I have just come across an allegedly uncut copy of the controversial WAKE IN FRIGHT aka OUTBACK (1971; with Donald Pleasence) taken from an Australian TV screening and, as the credits rolled, an announcer informs the audience to tune in at the same time tomorrow for a screening of…BOTANY BAY!!

This was a speciality of Paramount Pictures to make adventures yarns: see for instance Edward Ludwig or even Lewis R Foster's colourful flicks. This one makes no exception, it remains in the house tradition and style, atmosphere and efficiency too. Alan Ladd does his job with not great conviction but that's OK. Mason is good as the evil captain, though not being Chuck Laughton in the 1936 version. Good movie for adventures features moviegoers.

This is a great novel, and the film, alas, does not quite live up to it. All the actors are quite all right, James Mason as a paragon of inhumanity at his most loathsome superiority - you wait for him to get murdered all through the film, and Alan Ladd, reliable as always in his irrepressible heroic obstinacy, Cedric Hardwicke as the pragmatic Australian governor, and Patricia Medina as the indispensible female element of some counterpoise to all the beastly cruelty. Franz Waxman's music helps a lot, and there is nothing really to complain about in this film on a great and interesting story indeed, except that it could have been made so much better, as the novel is well on par with "Mutiny on the Bounty".

Following the death of his parents from the plague, American "Tallant" (Alan Ladd) came back to the mother country only to get embroiled with a crooked inheritance agent and find himself found guilty of stealing his own cash! Transportation was the order of the day, so he is imprisoned in the ship of "Capt. Gilbert" (James Mason) and off they set on the eight month voyage to New South Wales. En route, it soon appears that "Gilbert" might have learned the arts of seamanship from Captain Bligh, so when the decent young "Tallant" falls in with the enigmatic "Sally" (Patricia Medina) he ends up earning the animosity of his host, and after a failed escape attempt is now a marked man. Even though he has a modicum of medical experience and the ship no surgeon, what chance he will make it half way around the world to put his case to the Governor (Sir Cedric Hardwicke)? Mason is on quite decent form as the menacingly jealous officer and Medina does well with a slightly demonic look in her eye but Ladd, he's as wooden as the mizen mast. He has the all-American football player looks, all right, but as an actor he has all the screen presence of a dead chipmunk. It's a predictably episodic adventure but whilst all are at sea it's quite good fun before an ending that is all a bit disappointingly rushed and which I felt rather let it all down. Still, there's plenty going on, even a keel-hauling, and plenty of folks get clunked on the head or shot or drowned, so it is worth a watch.

Other reviewers of Botany Bay have complained about the lack of location shooting in this film. Two very good reasons for Paramount's decision to opt for the back lot. First it was expensive to go to Australia for an American company. I'm sure that there are Aussie films that deal with this particular portion of their history far better than Botany Bay.

But secondly this was the last picture on Alan Ladd's Paramount contract. He and his agent/wife Sue Carol made a decision to move to Warner Brothers so Paramount was getting rid of the last film on his contract. They were not about to spend big bucks promoting a star who wasn't going to be bringing in more box office for them.

Having said that Botany Bay is not a bad film and it certainly did give American audiences some idea about the founding of Australia as a haven for convict prisoners. One of our original 13 colonies, Georgia, was founded for just that reason also, but here a whole continent was devoted to same.

Ladd plays an American accused of being a highwayman in Great Britain. The fact he was an American probably played some role in his conviction so shortly after the American Revolution in the 1780s. He's saved from the hangman by this offer of pardon to go to Australia and he travels on a crowded ship, skippered by a sadistic captain.

Who is played by James Mason who basically steals the film. The novel on which this is based is by Nordhoff and Hall who wrote Mutiny on the Bounty and there's a whole lot of Captain Bligh in Mason. We've also got Patricia Medina, a saucy wench who likes Ladd, but flirts with Mason for her survival on the ship in some comfort.

Not a bad film, but not the greatest of send offs for one of Paramount's biggest stars.