No mutiny here

Rating: 7/10 (18 November 2017)

If you are in the navy and your terminally stressed-out captain, during a typhoon, alternates between paralysis and giving lunatic orders calculated to make the ship highly liable to founder, do you not relieve him of his command ? What else could you possibly do ? Drown along with the rest of the crew ? Perhaps there would still be a court-martial.
Most reviewers seem to be in two minds about this movie. Virtually all are agreed that the romance is completely irrelevant, and belongs somewhere else, if anywhere. Most consider it otherwise well-acted, at least by Bogart, MacMurray and Van Johnson. Most consider the end scene with Jose Ferrer turning up drunk and jingoistic to be embarrassing. For some reason it nevertheless seems kind of interesting and memorable. I remember my mother talking about it in 1955. It's dated, and yet it isn't, and still seems strangely effective.