The Caine Mutiny **** (1954, Humphrey Bogart, José Ferrer, Van Johnson, Fred MacMurray, Robert Francis, Tom Tully) – Classic Movie Review 3367

Director Edward Dmytryk’s 1954 war drama thriller The Caine Mutiny stars Humphrey Bogart as Captain Queeg of the United States Navy, a man so nervous to the point of being on the wrong side of neurotic.

Dmytryk’s movie is a tense, gripping, rivetingly performed version of the hit Pulitzer-prize-winning novel and play by Herman Wouk. There were seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Bogart for Best Actor and Tom Tully for Best Supporting Actor, but no wins at all. No Golden Globe, Bafta or Film Critic awards, either.

Queeg finds his crewmen (José Ferrer, Van Johnson, Fred MacMurray, Robert Francis) are taking over his mine-sweeping destroyer The Caine during a typhoon in World War Two after he replaces Captain DeVriess (Tom Tully) on board their small, insignificant ship in the US Pacific Fleet.

Though the typhoon is well staged, the film is at its best during the courtroom scenes that focus on the men’s struggle to explain their mutiny actions and to try to absolve themselves of blame after committing an offence that was legally incorrect but morally right. As the trial proceeds and it is revealed that the captain was mentally unstable, possibly insane, the US Navy must decide if the mutiny was a criminal act.

The impressive cast turns Stanley Roberts’s razor-sharp screenplay into a powerful and memorable adventure drama, and this is Bogart at his best. Also in that cast are May Wynn, E G Marshall, Lee Marvin, Claude Atkins, Arthur Franz, Don Dubbins, Warner Anderson, Katherine Warren, Jerry Paris, Steve Brodie, Todd Karns, Whit Bissell, James Best, Joe Haworth and Guy Anderson.

The Caine Mutiny is directed by Edward Dmytryk, runs 124 minutes, is a Columbia release, is written by Stanley Roberts, with additional dialogue by Michael Blankfort, based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Herman Wouk, is shot by Franz Planer, is produced by Stanley Kramer, is scored by Max Steiner and designed by Cary Odell.

Michael Caine, then Maurice Micklewhite from the Elephant and Castle, re-named himself after this movie, which he saw on a marquee at the Odeon in London’s Leicester Square.

Dmytryk and Bogart reunited for the much less successful The Left Hand of God (1955).

Robert Francis’s film debut is also his most significant role, Ensign Willie Keith in The Caine Mutiny (1954)

It is the debut film of forgotten star Robert Francis, who died in an air crash at 25. On 31 July 1955, Francis was piloting a borrowed Beechcraft Bonanza, which stalled and crashed in a parking lot where it burst into flames, killing its three occupants. He appeared in only four Hollywood films, all with military themes: The Caine Mutiny (1954), They Rode West (1954), The Bamboo Prison (1954) and The Long Gray Line (1955).

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3367

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/

Humphrey Bogart at his best in The Caine Mutiny (1954).