Flawed movie, but some very gripping scenes

Rating: 7/10 (17 September 2007)

Humphrey Bogart's performance in "The Caine Mutiny" was the second-best of his career. Only his performance in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," one of Hollywood's best-ever, was better. And, yes, I did watch "Casablanca."
Bogart's outstanding acting makes the movie's gripping scenes even more compelling. The best scene is his falling apart on the witness stand  a sort of subdued version of Jack Nicholson's memorable breakdown in "A Few Good Men." The other great scenes were when Van Johnson takes over command of the ship as Bogart vacillates during a typhoon and the hunt for the missing strawberries.
Throughout "Caine," the writers do a good job of showing how Bogart's Captain Queeg is an incompetent officer and one of those petty jerks everybody hates  a compulsive authoritarian who tries to make up for his lack of substance by focusing on rules so he is always right and everyone else is wrong.
The confrontation between Bogart and his subordinates, the disputes between the officers about what to do about Queeg, the transformation of the Van Johnson character, and the canniness and cowardice of the Fred MacMurray character are also positive elements in the movie.
All this makes the ending absolutely infuriating. Jose Ferrer's speech is beyond ludicrous. It's based on two premises  MacMurray was the brains behind the mutiny and the mutiny was unjustified. Half the movie is about MacMurray laying the groundwork for the mutiny so Ferrer's conclusion is news only to himself.
The second premise is just dumb. Bogart had acted incompetently and cowardly at sea twice before the typhoon  and blamed others for his mistakes. Ferrer's declaration that Johnson would not have had to act against Bogie during the typhoon if officers had months earlier accepted their captain's plea for help  and Johnson agreeing with Ferrer  makes no sense. Lives were in danger during the typhoon. Period.
The conclusion has the stench of U.S. Navy censorship.
I noticed that many IMDb posters rip the romance between the young officer and his girlfriend. This is interesting since there are countless 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s movies with unconvincing romances that appear to be patronizing attempts to win over female viewers, and many of those romances are barely criticized.
The romance in this movie is less distracting and time-consuming than many others. At least I can see what the writers were trying to do  make us interested in the young officer so we viewers care about what happens to him later on. This works up to a point. It ultimately does NOT work -- not because the romance is uninteresting, but because the officer's character is NOT developed. He is an uninteresting observer for most of "Caine," and he is a milquetoast when he takes stands on principle later in the film.
Robert Francis' lack of development in "Caine" compares unfavorably to the transformations of Jack Lemmon and Charlie Sheen in "Mister Roberts" and "Platoon." It doesn't help that Francis is not a good actor.
The writers should have spent more time developing Francis' character instead of using 35 minutes before Bogart enters the movie or they should have downplayed Francis and focused on Van Johnson instead.
I gave "Caine" a 7.
ZWrite
P.S. -- By the way, nominating the actor who played Queeg's predecessor instead of MacMurray for a Best Supporting Oscar is preposterous.