The Caine Mutiny (1954)
Director: Edward Dmytryk
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, José Ferrer, Van Johnson
Synopsis:
The crew of a minesweeper suffers under the command of an increasingly unstable captain until his XO relieves him of command, only to later face a court martial for it.
Impressions:
I actually watched this back-to-back with Mister Roberts, so it was interesting to see two very different takes on ships helmed by little tyrants. This is a more serious and tragic sort of film. Humphrey Bogart delivers an amazing departure from his usual stuff as the paranoiac Queeg and José Ferrer is also quite impressive as Lieutenant Greenwald, even more so given his comparatively little screentime. Van Johnson and Fred MacMurray are also pretty good. Robert Francis does what he's supposed to as the audience surrogate, but his character isn't all that interesting and his romantic subplot feels like a waste of time (and it was apparently trimmed down quite a bit, thankfully). While the film is solid throughout, the court martial and its aftermath really pack a lot of punch. I highly recommend this one. Give it a watch.
Watch It