War is a 24 hour a day job

Rating: 9/10 (5 July 2001)

Humphrey Bogart turns in one of his very best performances as the quirky Captain Queeg who takes over command of The Caine, a war-weary armored ship, in the last days of the Second World War. His senior officers, played by Van Johnson, Fred MacMurray, and Robert Francis, have a hard time accommodating his strict stewardship and begin to question his authority. When The Caine gets active duty, tensions mount, tempers flare, and the crew gets mutinous! In the background there is lots of action, a banal but innocuous love affair, some schmaltzy humor, and a strong unquestioning dose of 1950s feel good American patriotism mixed with some new Hollywood Jung/Freud psycho-babble.
After the mutiny on The Caine, the movie ends with an even bigger bang--a terrific court-martial that pits defender Jose Ferrer against prosecutor E.G. Marshall. Jose Ferrar wins over the officers in the end and his final interrogation of Queeg (Bogart) remains one of the most powerful courtroom scenes in any movie made since. The end of the picture leaves us with a riddle and some judicious comments from Jose Ferrar about social rank and true loyalty.
What makes this film such a classic are the tremendous performances by all the actors, from a very young Lee Marvin as a lowly seaman to all those already mentioned, each is flawless. Stanley Kramer produced and this is his best effort, far better than later movies such as "The Defiant Ones" or "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner."
For any fan of Bogart, good dialogue, or intriguing story lines, this movie will delight. One of the best -- watch it!