CinemaSerf

Sep 7, 2026

7.0

If you ever saw Trevor Howard's "The Gift Horse" from 1952, then you'll get a idea about the USS "Caine" - a ramshackle old ship captained by "DeVriess" (Tom Tully) in what you might call a relaxed fashion. Unexpectedly, he gets a promotion and the ship is taken over by the fastidious "Queeg" (Humphrey Bogart) who takes an whole different approach to sailors with their shirts hanging out. This culture clash grates with executive officer "Maryk" (Van Johnson); the well-heeled new boy "Keith" (Robert Francis) and "Keefer" (Fred MacMurray) but they have to rub along with the man as he seems determined to force this ship to raise it's game and become battle-ready. The thing with their new captain, though, is that his behaviour is starting to become erratic. He fixates on minutiae, obessess with discipline and seems to have only a limited grasp of the plot amidst a violent typhoon - and that controversially forces the hand of his number two and lands them all in a court martial. Their actions haven't gone unnoticed by the judge advocate's department and with nobody very enthusiastic to defend them, it falls to "Greenwald" (José Ferrer) to step in. He makes it clear that he has little respect for any of them, but he's all they've got so fingers crossed... The first half hour of this film is, I think, unneccessarily slow but once we've got the characters established and the plot starts to thicken then there are opportunities for Bogart, Johnson and Ferrer to show something of their mettle. The former treads on psychologically imbalanced eggshells with considerable skill whilst the Johnson displays his conflicted position confidently - and both with subtlety and humanity. This isn't just a maritime courtroom drama, nor just a wartime story, it's one that deals explicitly with the impact of prolonged exposure to combat and stress on a person's mental health and also of the lack of understanding by a land-lubbing medical profession that operated exclusively within the scope of it's textbooks and consulting rooms. The last ten minutes show off both Bogart and Ferrer at their best, but the whole simmering story is well worth watching to see loyalties and friendships tested on screen whilst thoughts provoked off it.