Twilight for the Gods ** (1958, Rock Hudson, Cyd Charisse, Arthur Kennedy, Leif Erickson) – Classic Movie Review 10,913

‘Loved…Hated… Feared… Envied… but only this woman wanted him enough to break the laws of Gods and men!’

Director Joseph Pevney’s 1958 Eastmancolor Universal International Pictures adventure Twilight for the Gods is based on a novel by Ernest K Gann and stars Rock Hudson, Cyd Charisse, Arthur Kennedy, Leif Erickson, Charles McGraw, Ernest Truex, Richard Haydn and Wallace Ford. Unfortunately, though it looks promising on paper, the adventure story is mundane and ordinary, the characters are not very interesting and the acting is not particularly special or convincing either.

Twilight for the Gods explores the troubles of haunted, alcoholic captain David Bell (Hudson), Honolulu hooker Charlotte King (Charisse) and shifty ship’s first mate Ramsay (Kennedy) aboard a broken-down ship making its stormy final voyage with a leaking hull, setting out from the south Pacific for Mexico. The captain is persuaded by the crew reluctantly to change course for Honolulu, where Charlotte King is wanted over a man’s death. While the water rises, the ship of fools struggle to survive.

Alas Twilight for the Gods is merely an average adventure, scripted by Gann from his own book, with all the stock ingredients and usual suspects of the disaster movie. With its cliched dialogue, stereotyped situations and stock caricatures instead of individual characters, it is total hokum. But it is lifted by some zest in the handling the pretty location photography in Hawaii by Irving Glassberg.

Also in the cast are Celia Lovsky, Judith Evelyn, Vladimir Sokoloff, Charles Horvath, Robert F Hoy, Maurice Marsac, Virginia Gregg, William Challee, Morris Ankrum, Arthur Space, Kimo Mahi, Norman Wright and Coleman Francis.

The  sailing vessel in the film is called Cannibal, but the boat used is the Albatross, owned by author Ernest K Gann, who sailed her from California to the South Pacific. His account of the voyage is written in his non-fiction books Song of the Sirens and A Hostage to Fortune.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,913

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