| The Caine Mutiny | |
|---|---|
 original film poster |
|
| Directed by | Edward Dmytryk |
| Produced by | |
| Written by | Herman Wouk (novel) Stanley Roberts |
| Starring | Humphrey Bogart Robert Francis E.G. Marshall |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
| Release date(s) | |
| Running time | 124 min. |
| Language | |
| IMDb profile | |
- This is about the film. For the 1951 novel see
The Caine Mutiny
The Caine Mutiny is a
Synopsis
The tale is of a mutiny aboard a fictitious World War II
U.S. Navy destroyer minesweeper, the U.S.S. Caine (DMS-18), provoked by the ongoing tensions between a by-the-book,
battle-fatigued, isolated and
After several shipboard incidents ranging from petty (Queeg's angry order to search the ship to uncover who stole a quart of strawberries from the kitchen) to dangerous (Queeg's decision to prematurely terminate the Caine's protective escort for a group of landing craft during an invasion), Keefer persuades Maryk to study Navy regulations regarding relieving an incapacitated captain of command. Maryk reluctantly arranges a meeting with the commanding Admiral accompanied by Keefer and Keith, but as the Admiral is about to meet them, Keefer appears to lose his nerve and backs out because "they'd never believe our story". Later, during a violent typhoon, Maryk takes over from Captain Queeg after Queeg makes several decisions — not to take on ballast during the storm and not to steer into the waves — that nearly capsize the Caine.
When they return to port, Maryk faces a court martial for mutiny. Proceedings do not go well, as the self-serving Keefer is
careful to deny any complicity. Eventually the defense counsel, Lieutenant Barney Greenwald (
After Maryk is acquitted, he and his supporters celebrate at a hotel. At that moment a drunken Greenwald crashes the party to deliver a few home truths as to what really happened and which were not disclosed at the trial: about how he had initially refused to defend Maryk but changed his mind because he realized "the wrong man was on trial"; how Queeg, who is a career naval man whereas the others have signed on due to the war, put a dishevelled and undisciplined ship back on its feet but failed to get the support of its officers; and how all this could have been avoided had they done so.
He concludes by throwing a drink in Keefer's face, denouncing him as the real "author" of the mutiny and showing how he deliberately manipulated the whole thing out of frustration with the Navy and the resentment of the fact that Queeg barred him from writing a book that would make him "a million bucks". After he leaves, the other officers, shocked at this revelation of Keefer's complete disregard for the well-being even of his supposed "friends", walk out on him, leaving him alone in the room.
Keith returns to military duty aboard another ship under the command of Captain DeVriess, the previous captain of the Caine. He discovers a new respect for the captain he once dismissed as sloppy and unorthodox in his leadership.
Awards and response
The movie provided Humphrey Bogart with the next-to-last great role of his acting career [citation needed] and a comeback for Dmytryk, formerly
one of the
The film received
Production
The Navy initially objected to the film's depiction of a
mentally unbalanced man as the captain of one of its ships and the word "mutiny" in the film's title. But after the script was
altered somewhat, the Navy cooperated with Columbia Pictures by providing ships,
planes, combat boats, and access to
Director
Director Edward Dmytryk spent time in prison as one of the
Production information
- The Caine was played by the Navy destroyer-minesweeper USS Thompson (DD-627/DMS-38). This ship was not a 4-stack World War I era ship like the vessel in the novel because at the time the film was made, all such vessels had been scrapped.
- The ship was named for a fictitious Navy Commander, Arthur Wingate Caine, who died in
battle while serving aboard another fictitious ship, the USS Jones. The Jones—portrayed briefly by the minesweeper
USS Surfbird (AM-383)—is the ship that the Caine raced back to port
during a minesweeping exercise early in the film.
Admiral Halsey's unnamed flagship was portrayed by theUSS Kearsarge (CV-33) , a post-War aircraft carrier launched in 1946; a number of World War II-era fighter planes were placed atop the flight deck for filming purposes. - Michael Caine (born Maurice Micklewhite) changed his name to Michael Scott when he first became an actor. He happened to be speaking to his agent in a telephone box in London's Leicester Square, who suggested Caine change his name again. His agent insisted that he come up with a new name immediately, because another actor was already using "Michael Scott." Looking around for inspiration, he noted that The Caine Mutiny was being shown at the Odeon Cinema, and so he decided to change his name to Michael Caine.
- The supporting character of Ens. Barney Harding—whose strumming a ukelele singing a sarcastic song, "Yellowstain Blues,"
after Capt. Queeg inexplicably ordered a dye marker thrown off the stern during the invasion incident—was played by
Jerry Paris. Paris later became familiar as the wiseguy next-door-neighbor dentist Jerry
Helper on
The Dick Van Dyke Show —and as a successful television director whose credits included numerous episodes of The Odd Couple and Happy Days. - According to MovieMistakes.com, no ship in the U.S. Navy during World War II was capable of traveling in a circle tight enough to cut its own tow line, as the Caine was depicted doing. This may or may not be true based on the length of the tow-line.
- After the novel's success, the court-martial sequence in the book was adapted into a full-length
Broadway play, The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, by its original author Herman Wouk. The play, directed by actorCharles Laughton , was a success on the stage in1954 , opening almost exactly five months before the release of the film The Caine Mutiny, which covers nearly the whole book, not just the court-martial scene. The stage version starredLloyd Nolan as Queeg, John Hodiak as Maryk, andHenry Fonda as Greenwald. It has been revived twice on Broadway, and was presented on television in 1955, as a live presentation, and in 1988, as amade-for-television film. - The novel goes into a great deal more detail about Willie Keith's experiences both in midshipman school and in his early relationship with his amorata May Wynn. After the court-martial, he returns to the Caine and we see his development into a tempered, capable Naval officer, which is barely hinted at in the film.
- The film's musical score was by
Max Steiner , longtime staff composer at Warner Brothers, who occasionally wrote music for other studios. During the many years that Humphrey Bogart was under contract to Warners, a number of his films were scored by Steiner. This was the last Bogart film scored by Steiner; the stirring main theme was included inRCA Victor 's collection of classic Bogart film scores, recorded by Charles Gerhardt and theNational Philharmonic Orchestra .
See also
Typhoon Cobra , an actual typhoon that threatened U.S. warships under circumstances similar to those in the book.
External links
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
