Terror no Mar

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.

Back in the day, films often featured actors playing races other than their own. Charlie Chan was played by a Swedish-American and Boris Karloff played the Chinese detective Mr. Wong. All of these are pretty silly when you see them today due to the casting (though they both still made some terrific series films). Such is how I felt as I watched "The Decks Ran Red", where two Maoris from New Zealand were played by Black Americans! Black people and Maoris simply don't look like each other...and I especially laughed because Dorothy Dandridge of all people played one of them. I've been to New Zealand a couple times...and never saw ANYONE who looked like her! It's a shame, as it's not a bad story...it's just incredibly poorly cast.

Along a similar vein, I read up on the ill-fated S. S. Berwind. The mutineers in the actual 1905 incident were black men...though everyone in the film is white (aside from the two 'Maoris'). A lot of other changes were made in the original story...such as placing it in the 1950s as well as in the South Pacific. I'm not sure why these changes were made....but so many were made it's best to regard the film as fiction.

When the story begins, the captain of a merchant ship has died and Edwin Rummill (James Mason) has been hired to command the ship. However, when he arrives in New Zealand to take command, he can easily see that its crew are disgruntled and perhaps mutinous. Instead of refusing the assignment or getting a new crew, Rummill makes the disastrous choice to go ahead anyway, as the ship is already three days late.

Aboard the ship, you soon learn that Henry Scott and Leroy Martin (Broderick Crawford and Stuart Whitman) have hatched a truly evil plan. They have been fomenting dissent...and their ultimate goal is to get everyone but themselves on the ship to either kill each other OR they'll do it to them. Then, when the ship is derelict, they' plan to claim the boat as salvage and get rich. Does their plan work? Well, as I watched I had no idea since the film diverged so much from the 1905 incident...and I know how the 1905 incident went down.

The story is quite taut and certainly is never dull. The acting was good, though Dandridge's character wasn't needed in the film and she was just added as eye candy (after all, a merchant ship would NOT bring a woman along...especially back in 1905). Worth seeing...just don't think it has much to do with the REAL Berwind incident...which, incidentally, ended MUCH differently as well! Well worth seeing, but seeing the ACTUAL story probably would have been more exciting.

Whether it actually is or not, this claustrophobic suspense yarn seems like a 'B' picture. Though Mason and Dandridge were in the midst of their best years career-wise, this seems like a step down...like something that one would do if there was no more quality work. The story (supposedly based on fact) concerns a ship Captain's (Mason) attempt to thwart a murder for riches scheme envisioned by Crawford and Whitman. The pair of thugs plan to make the crew seem like they're planning a mutiny so that it will be entered into the Captain's log. Then they will kill the crew, pretend to be the only survivors and bring the ship in for salvage worth over a million dollars. Crawford lumbers through the film with his usual style, but does present a threatening persona. Whitman struts around and poses in the world's clingiest jeans, his hair all '50's Bryll cream. It's hard to believe he was just three years away from a Best Actor nomination. Mason is believable as a Captain, but not as an action hero as he is later forced to become. A dash of feminine sex appeal is supplied by Dandridge who plays the wife of the ship's cook. She feels the need to serve the men on the boat while wearing snug dresses with deep necklines, which causes it's share of problems. Eventually, the opposing sides must play a cat and mouse game while running all around the ship. (And since it is a black and white film, the decks run grey!) The film has going for it some surprisingly stark moments of violence (for that time) and some creative camera-work in the confined bowels of the ship. Drawbacks include the bland settings, the fact that there's too much talk about what's happening in the story rather than letting the audience see it (crewmen keep coming back to the saloon to tell what's happening outside!) and a feverish, unintentionally hilarious performance by Cross as a third party in the scheme. Also, Bard, as Mason's wife, gives a bizarre performance, nervously looking at the floor through most of her brief scenes and swallowed up in an ugly coat. Still, it's a fairly tight little film with some degree of interest. TV fans may recognize old salt Patterson from "Green Acres".

These two merchant sailors -- Broderick Crawford and Stewart Whitman -- get a crazy idea aboard a freighter. They're going to kill every officer and man aboard, waterlog the ship, radio for help, claim there was a mutiny and everyone left the ship but them, and claim the ship, worth a million bucks, for salvage.

Granted, the idea is slightly askew, but these guys are snipes, working down in the engine room and the temperature there runs around 116 degrees and sounds like the deepest pits of hell. That environment will drive anyone nuts. Besides, it's like the old joke. "How's your wife?" "Compared to WHAT?" If you put Crawford and Whitman next to the Manson Family or al Qaeda they look like paragons of rationality. So, okay, let's leave them some leeway, so to speak.

I'll skip the plot, I guess, because it doesn't require much in the way of explanation. The dialog lacks verve and credibility. "Anything can happen!" "Whoever destroyed the radios must have had a PURPOSE." And when the officers find three corpses in the engine room, someone says to Mason, "Do you realize the ENORMITY of this?" The acting doesn't require much comment either. Everybody involved delivers about what you'd expect. Mason is smooth, Crawford plays a junk man, Whitman is a little ratty, and none of the others stand out -- except Dorothy Dandridge. She can't act very well, but -- wow! What a dish. I don't know about "a million bucks" but Dorothy Dandridge could start a genuine mutiny alright.

I vaguely remember seeing this when it was released and, it may be hard for a contemporary viewer to understand but, like "The Sniper," which was released about the same time, it was shocking in its brutality. The theater suddenly went kind of quiet when Crawford deliberately picked off one of the crew members from a few feet away with a high-powered rifle. The sexy Dandridge was memorable too, although I don't recall that she quieted down the audience.

The Perrys, who produced, had a habit of using real locations for their shoots. "Cry Terror," another suspenser with James Mason, made good use of New York locations. And they actually sunk a liner for one of their movies, something like, "The Last Voyage." I'm glad they never made a movie about the end of the world.

The story isn't really a grabber and the acting is no more than routine but this is worth seeing, if only because it gives you a chance to feel what it's really like to be on a ship, not a mockup of the kind that John Wayne sails through with such ease. The ship, by the way, is pretty ship shape and not at all a rust bucket. She's also high in the water because she's carrying no cargo.

One never ceases to be amazed at how wide film-makers spread the net in order to find material and director Andrew L. Stone has loosely, very loosely based his screenplay upon a mutiny that took place in 1905.

This is one of two films he made with James Mason in both of which his character has to contend with a psychopath. In 'Cry Terror' he is up against Rod Steiger and in this the honour goes to Broderick Crawford at his most brilliantly brutish.

Stone is probably most renowned for sinking the already condemned luxury liner SS Ile de France in 'The Last Voyage' and here he has utilised a Liberty ship, making the most of the confined spaces below decks to emphasise the aura of menace whilst Testosterone levels are increased by the presence of the cook's wife played by sultry Dorothy Dandridge whose character progresses from eye candy to avenging angel.

The editing by Stone's wife Virginia keeps the momentum going and is especially effective during the action packed second half which maintains one's interest despite highly improbable goings-on that strain credibility to the utmost.

The character of Edwin Rummell, sounds suspiciously like Erwin Rommel to me which may or may not be coincidental, gives James Mason an unfamiliar role as an action hero and it was Stone himself who commented that Mason 'was too intelligent for some of the work he had to do in movies.' Quite.