An entertaining and powerful drama about leadership, discipline ... and strawberries ...

Rating: 9/10 (1 October 2013)

If there ever was one lesson to learn from "The Caine Mutiny" is not to take any judgment for granted. Quite simple, isn't it? But this is more thought-provoking than anything you might learn from any war drama of the same period.
Indeed, although the film is dedicated to the US Navy, there is no patriotic stuff, no heroic soldiers brandishing the spangled banner and no heart-pounding fight scenes, just a movie using the war as back-story for a more insightful journey featuring flawed men on a flawed minesweeper and, much more, under the commandment of a flawed person, and I use this epithet as an explicit synonym of 'realistic'.
Of course, the credit mostly goes to Herbert Wouk, the original novel's author, who won the Pulitzer Price in 1952. Still, Edward Dmytryck, the director, did a good job in his portrayal of the leadership and human interactions' complexities during critical situations, allowing veteran actor Humphrey Bogart to deliver one of his finest performances, rightfully Oscar-nominated, as Captain Queeg, a living incarnation of paranoia, a 'Fred C. Dobbs on the water' if I may say.
And Bogart has a fine class of actors to work with, including Fred MacMurray, Van Johnson and Jose Ferrer. I should also mention Robert Francis as Junior Ensign Willie Keith. But Francis departed so early from our world that we'd never know where his brief career would have lead. Surely he was too clean-cut and so unlike James Dean to reach the same iconic status but within the role he was supposed to play, he was convincing as an idealistic newcomer who believes in rules, authority and discipline.
Yet, what Keith forgot was that these ideals mostly rely on personality and situations, otherwise, they are just inspirational but empty words. The questions raised by the film are: what to do when under a bad leadership? And mostly, how much of our own responsibility is involved before we indulge to put all the criticism on one person's side? The film works like a naval "12 Angry Men", but manages to display some unsuspected hints of subversive intelligence in the way it misleads our own opinions.
It's all about correcting preconceived ideas, starting with the opening anticlimax, when Keith's Ivy-league enthusiasm is undermined by the discovering of the floating mess named "Caine", where nonchalant sailors work under the commandment of easygoing Captain DeVriess, played by Tom Tully. DeVriess benefits from a huge popularity, an asset that will severely lack after his replacement by Captain Queeg, the man who works by the book, expecting every detail to be exemplary.
Queeg sets the tones and ignites optimistic sparkles in Keith's eyes, but they will quickly extinguish as Queeg's personality is progressively unveiled, showing more obvious signs of paranoia, betrayed by his strange habit to play with steel ball bearings. And their clicking noises are like a ticking bomb foreshadowing a devastating explosion. And the series of incidents going on the "Caine" provide many entertaining moments, whose most defining involving the disappearance of strawberries, a benign case blown out of proportions that will convince the crew of Queeg's inability for leadership. But beware whom you may take side with!
Van Johnson as Lieutenant Maryck slowly adopts the position of his friend, the cynical and novelist Tom Keefer, magnificently portrayed by Fred MacMurray, and ultimately, young Keith sides with them. The point is that we start looking at Queeg through their eyes, but it's only a matter of time before the movie provides us a newer mindset, from their lawyer (a scene-stealing Jose Ferrer). There is no word to describe Queeg's speech with the unforgettable "Aaah, but the strawberries! That's, that's where I had them" followed by a priceless expression on the eyes of the prosecutor (E.G. Marshall) and Ferrer's final toast, except mind-blowing.
Still, the film isn't beyond criticism and it has nothing to do with its faithfulness to the book, quite the opposite in fact. In my opinion, "The Caine Mutiny" suffers from what I call the "Red River" syndrome. Both are men's movies with rich and multi-layered interactions, yet for some reason, the writers felt the need to inject some romantic subplot, totally random within the film's context. I understand that "The Caine Mutiny" is an adaptation and the romance played a significant part of the in the process, I guess it's supposed to highlight Keith's maturation BUT that's why we say 'adapted screenplay'.
And that's why "The Godfather" was a masterpiece, because Coppola removed the novel's sleazy details, this is why "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is a masterpiece, because Forman focused on McMurphy instead of telling the story from the Chief's perspective. Keith might have been the central character of the film, but the story inside the Caine was so thrilling that anything happening outside was useless. I can't believe such a wonderful screenplay with so many three-dimensional and ambiguous characters could indulge to such artificial clichés. Especially since 'Keith' isn't really a flamboyant character, not with a cast that includes Humphrey Bogart, Jose Ferrer or Fred McMurray.
Robert Francis is not to blame though, his performance is all right given the character he plays, he's supposed to be the passive observer whom we can identify with. Keith embodied our viewer's position, like the journalist in "Das Boot", a neutral character whose judgment can only be based on what happens during the film (since it was his first mission) therefore (mis)leading our judgments. I'm not saying I disliked the romance because it was bad but because without it, "The Caine Mutiny" would've been a true masterpiece, not just one of the greatest dramas of the 50's, which it is, thanks to Ferrer, Bogart and MacMurray, notably during the last ten minutes.
And also because I can't resist to a serious film, where no-nonsense grown-ups argue a whole night long about goddamn strawberries!