If you want to do something about it I'll be outside. I'm a lot drunker then you are so it ill be a fair fight!

Rating: 8/10 (13 December 2010)

***SPOILERS*** It's when the USS Cain's skipper Cmdr. DeViress, Tom Tully, was suddenly replaced by hard bitten and by the books Lt. Cmdr. Philip Francis Queeg, Humphrey Bogart, that things started to drastically change for it's more or less motley and disheveled crew. Queeg took absolutely no BS from the sailors and made them shape up or had them ship out if they didn't follow his orders to the letter. This seems to bother his communications officer Lt. Keefer Fred MacMurray, who in studying the human condition,in being a part time mystery writer, felt that Queeg was a bit off center in his mental stability.
It was after a while when Queeg started showing signs of being off his rocker in how he not only treated his men but the ship USS Cain as well that Keefer came to the conclusion that he's unfit to run the ship. It's then that Keefer tried to convince Queeg's 1st. Mate Lt.Steve Maryk,Van Johnson, to relive him of command before his bizarre actions end up sinking the ship together with its crew. The straw that finally broke the camel's back was the strawberry incident where Queeg became obsessed in finding out who broke into the ship's ice box and ate a number of portions of the frozen fruit without authorization!
This almost had Keefer together with 1st Mate Maryk and Ens. Willie Keith, Robert Francis, go so far as to report Queeg's actions to his commanding officer with Keefer then chickening out at the very last moment and aborting the entire idea. The dam finally broke during a violent Pacific typhoon when Queeg was about to let the USS. Cain go under the waves, by freezing in the sight of danger, that a reluctant 1st. Mate Haryk took command of the ship against Queeg's strong objections. This all set up the navel court marshal trail of both 1st. Mate Haryk and Ens.Keith on the charge of mutiny in wartime where if convicted they can very well end up being executed!
***SPOILERS from here on down *** It's not until Haryk and Keith's appointed military lawyer Lt. Barney Greenwald, Jose Ferrer, shows up that things really start moving in the two sailors favor. Lt. Greenwald knows full well that the cowardly and sniveling Lt.Keefer is really the guilty party in this whole sleazy affair but is forced to use Queeg's off the wall testimony to get them off the hook. With Queeg on the stand Lt.Greenwald slowly took him apart by bring up the strawberry incident that caused him, who up until that time was as cool as a cucumber, to lose it!
Twitching and losing control of his composure Queege started to fall apart on the stand by taking out his pair of pet steel balls and clicking them uncontrollable to the shock and surprise of the navel officers conducting the court-marshal! Broken and humiliated by this experience Queeg broke down mumbling to himself about how everyone on the ship was conspiring against him! With the now discredited Queeg exposed for what he is, mentally unstable, the the only verdict that the jury could came up with in the charges against Maryk and Keith was a unanimous not guilty!
It's when the film was just about over that Lt. Grteenwald let his pent up emotions about the trial and what he ended up doing to Lt. Cadr.Queeg come to the surface! Getting good and drunk Lt.Greenwald let all those celebrating the acquitted of Maryk and Keith, as well as Maryk and Keith themselves, have it in how they in fact drove Queeg to lose it by sniping behind his back when he tried to do his job as skipper of the USS Cain! And saving his best ammunition for last Lt. Greenwald laid, with both barrels, into the gutless Lt. Thomas Keefer, who at least had the guts to show up, in setting the whole thing up and then chickening out when push came to shove thus letting his co conspirators, Maryk & Keith, end up taking the rap for him! Keefer being the yellow bellied coward that he is just stood there and took it on the chin, or in his face, knowing fully well that everything that Lt.Greenwald said about him was absolutely true!