![]() Jose Ferrer gave it a shifty edge in Edward Dmytryk’s movie the same year. Earnest everyman Henry Fonda originated the role on Broadway. Stephen Maryk in a San Francisco Naval District court on charges of mutiny, has been played by enough distinctly different types to suggest a part open to interpretation. Barney Greenwald, who reluctantly takes on the defense of Lt. In this uninterestingly designed staging at least, the Navy drama seems stilted, unable to harness its awkward relevance for renewed vigor. Back on the same stage where it premiered in 1954, “Caine Mutiny” is still a well-made play with a share of suspense, but in Jerry Zaks’ efficient but uninspired production, it rarely crackles. And it almost gets two officers disgraced or hanged.Last season’s taut revival of another period piece that confines an all-male ensemble to a courtroom or thereabouts, “Twelve Angry Men,” might have made resurrecting Wouk’s drama seem a good idea. ![]() From a case of over-extended battle fatigue, the crew of a warship are driven to accept an act of mutiny against it's captain in an emergency situation. It illustrates that personality flaws frequently causes the problems that affect all of us, and that we need more understanding of each other's problems to avoid the bigger ones. That aside, the impact of the film is still terrific half a century after it was shot. This is not in the film, but it shows that Queeg was not all that clean an officer. Queeg at first denies it, but when Greenwald says he can bring in (as witnesses) people connected with the sale of the items and the transport of them, Queeg suddenly remembers that he might have. When cross examined by Greenwald at the court martial of Maryk and Keith, Queeg is asked about whether or not he overused his right to free transport of liquor and other items from Hawaii to the mainland from the navy. Interestingly, the film makes Queeg better (if still sick) than the play does. And his magnificent moment of success: "the strawberries", and how he proved the theft with geometric precision, remains a signal that the person speaking has too many fixations. Every time you see some character showing nervous ticks, if he or she pulls out a pair of small metal balls and roll them in their hand, it is a salute to Bogie's originally doing it in THE CAINE MUTINY. There are mental images from the film (mostly connected to Bogart's Queeg) that people remember - even spoof. Only Robert Francis did not have a substantial career after his fine Ensign Keith - he died in a plane crash in 1955. The performances of the leads, Bogart, Johnson, MacMurray (his second of three great heels), Ferrer, Tully, and E.G.Marshall are all first rate, as are the supporting cast (which includes Lee Marvin, Claude Atkins, and Jerry Paris - all of whom had quite substantial careers after this film). It remains the American equivalent of the mutiny on the H.M.S. THE CAINE MUTINY was a successful novel, Broadway play ("THE CAINE MUTINY COURT MARTIAL") and a great movie. That this is a fictional mutiny does not seem to attract any attention. Caine, during the hurricane that preceded the battle of Okinawa. But the best known mutiny in the American navy is that on the U.S.S. ![]() Supreme Court decision - against the workers, who claimed they were not under military law. The other occurred in 1944 at Port Chicago, California, when, a few weeks after a terrible accident that killed many men loading ammunition on a boat, their replacements refused to work under existing unsafe conditions. To this day there is debate if Spencer (a troubled youth) was even serious about seizing the "Somers". Somers, had a court martial for three crew members (one, Midshipman Philip Spencer, was the son of Secretary of War John Canfield Spencer), which ended with their being found guilty and hanged. Historically there were two great United States Naval mutinies.
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