"I Kid You Not - The Greatest!"

Rating: Null/10 (25 January 2000)

Life aboard a warship in wartime is tense. If a captain starts to show signs of extreme eccentricity, what is his subordinate officer supposed to do? Obey orders, no matter how ludicrous, or damaging to ship's morale? Continue to respect the captain's rank, while despising the man? Article 184 of the US Navy Code (in 1943, at least) provided for a subordinate to relieve a commanding officer against the latter's will. However, the tiniest error of judgment in invoking Article 184 would render such a course of action nothing less than mutiny ... and mutiny is a capital offence.
Newly-commissioned Ensign Keith (Robert Francis) is a blonde, athletic, all-American boy who believes in the Navy and wants to do well. He is dismayed to learn that he has been assigned to the USS Caine, a rustbucket minesweeper with an unkempt, ill-disciplined crew. To make matters worse, the quirky Captain De Vriess takes against the new ensign. Oddball skipper and oddball crew love each other, and Keith despairs of ever seeing the Caine ship-shape. When De Vriess is suddenly replaced by Lieutenant-Commander Queeg, young Keith assumes that his troubles are over. In fact, they have just begun ...
Humphrey Bogart is memorable as Queeg, the urbane martinet who goes to pieces under the slightest pressure. It did not often fall to Bogart's lot to play weak men, but here he shows that his repertoire is large and varied.
The true star of the film is not Bogart, or even Jose Ferrer as Greenwald, the sharp lawyer. It is Van Johnson, playing to perfection the part of Steve Meryck, the ideal officer. Not especially bright or mentally flexible, Meryck is none the less a diamond of a man, reliable in a crisis, firm but fair with subordinates, a man to whom integrity comes as naturally as breathing. Pulled one way by his strong ethical sense and innate loyalty, and in the opposite direction by a desire to protect his ship and his crew, Meryck's tormented conscience is the heartland of the film. Johnson is utterly believable as this decent but limited man. As the seeds of doubt begin to germinate in his mind, the mutiny takes shape. Two great symbols mark the climax of the story - firstly the storm at sea which represents the emotional tempest on the bridge of the Caine, and secondly Meryck's wrenching of the controls from the 'frozen' hand of the skipper.
A great cast includes Fred MacMurray as Keefer and Lee Marvin, graduating to speaking parts, as Meatball. Keefer is the ironic, detached intellectual who shows his true colours under pressure. Marvin is Marvin, and we wouldn't want him any other way.
The scene in which the trio of proto-mutineers visits Admiral Halsey's flagship is a feast for the eyes in a film strong on visuals. The massive carrier looms over the tiny launch, emphasising the moral authority of the Navy and the tenuous nature of the mutinous enterprise. The colourful deck parade is not only visually pleasing, it underlines the eccentricity and unimportance of the Caine.
Several aspects of the court-martial fail to ring true. Lawyers do not order their clients to plead in a certain way - it is the client who instructs the advocate. The order in which the witnesses give evidence may contain a certain dramatic logic, but it makes no legal sense at all. Greenwald tells Queeg all about a document before asking the witness to identify it, and makes points in cross-examination which should properly be left until his closing speech.
Edward Dmytryk, one of the blacklisted 'un-American' directors of the McCarthy era, put together in 'Caine' a motion picture of outstanding quality. The strong Max Steiner score includes the jaunty Caine theme. Real-life combat footage is seamlessly spliced into the amphibious landing sequence. Perhaps the shipboard drama needs the change of air provided by the Yosemite interlude, but I for one found the love interest to be ... well, uninteresting. Apart from this, the Stanley Roberts screenplay is strong, drawing as it does on both the Herman Wouk novel and the subsequent stage play.
The intense close-up of the sick man as the crack-up begins, and the haunting rattle of the ball-bearings, are powerful dramatic devices. The up-beat ending stresses the continuity of Navy life and the inherent resilience of the American Way.
Great stuff.