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Ship of Fools (film)
Encyclopedia
Ship of Fools is a 1965 film
drama
which tells the overlapping stories of several passengers aboard an ocean liner
bound to Germany from Mexico in 1933. It stars Vivien Leigh
, Simone Signoret
, José Ferrer
, Lee Marvin
, Oskar Werner
, Michael Dunn, Elizabeth Ashley
, George Segal
, José Greco
and Heinz Rühmann
.
The movie was adapted by Abby Mann
from the novel of the same name
by Katherine Anne Porter
. It was directed by Stanley Kramer
.
It was to be Vivien Leigh's last film and Christiane Schmidtmer
's first US production. The Fat Man was portrayed by Henry Calvin
, who was known for starring on Walt Disney
's television series Zorro as Sergeant Demetrio Lopez Garcia. Lt. Huebner was portrayed by Werner Klemperer
, who was best known for his portrayal of Colonel Wilhelm Klink in the 1965-1971 CBS television comedy, Hogan's Heroes
.
, Mexico, for a voyage to Bremerhaven
, Germany, along with 600 displaced workers in steerage, being deported from Cuba back to Spain, and a not-so-exotic band of entertainers, for whom the voyage is just a job. Some are happy to be bound for a rising Nazi Germany, some are apprehensive, while others appear oblivious to its potential dangers.
The ship's doctor, Schumann, takes a special interest in La Condesa, a countess from Spain who has an addiction to drugs and is being shipped to a German-run prison. Her sense of certain doom is contrasted by the doctor's determination to fight the forces of oppression, embodied by his insistence that the people in steerage be treated like human beings rather than animals. The doctor himself has a secret, a terminal heart condition, and his sympathy for the countess soon evolves into love.
Several passengers are invited to dine each night at the captain's table. There, some are amused and others offended by the Anti-Semitic rants of a German businessman named Rieber (Jose Ferrer
). The Jewish Lowenthal is invited instead to join a dwarf named Glocken for his meals, and the two bond over their exclusion. Eventually a passenger named Freytag seems shocked to find himself ostracized when Rieber learns that his wife is Jewish.
Others aboard include a young American couple, David and Jenny, who bicker because David is unhappy at his lack of success with painting. A divorcée, Mary Treadwell, drinks and flirts, on a quest to recapture her youth in Paris. Bill Tenny is a former baseball player disappointed in the way his career never quite took off. They are distracted by the music and the professional dancers, whose flirtations seem to skirt the edges of solicitation, or dive right in to the seedy side of oblivion.
And when the passengers disembark, two are no longer with them -- the countess, who has been taken to an island prison, and the doctor, who has died.
for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White
(Robert Clatworthy
, Joseph Kish
) and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White
. It was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role
(Oskar Werner), Best Actor in a Supporting Role
(Michael Dunn), Best Actress in a Leading Role
(Simone Signoret), Best Costume Design, Black-and-White
, Best Picture
and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium
.
1965 in film
The year 1965 in film involved some significant events, with The Sound of Music topping the U.S. box office.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:...
drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
which tells the overlapping stories of several passengers aboard an ocean liner
Ocean liner
An ocean liner is a ship designed to transport people from one seaport to another along regular long-distance maritime routes according to a schedule. Liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes .Cargo vessels running to a schedule are sometimes referred to as...
bound to Germany from Mexico in 1933. It stars Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh
Vivien Leigh, Lady Olivier was an English actress. She won the Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire , a role she also played on stage in London's West End, as well as for her portrayal of the southern belle Scarlett O'Hara, alongside Clark...
, Simone Signoret
Simone Signoret
Simone Signoret was a French cinema actress often hailed as one of France's greatest movie stars. She became the first French person to win an Academy Award, for her role in Room at the Top...
, José Ferrer
José Ferrer
José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón , best known as José Ferrer, was a Puerto Rican actor, as well as a theater and film director...
, Lee Marvin
Lee Marvin
Lee Marvin was an American film actor. Known for his gravelly voice, white hair and 6' 2" stature, Marvin at first did supporting roles, mostly villains, soldiers and other hardboiled characters, but after winning an Academy Award for Best Actor for his dual roles in Cat Ballou , he landed more...
, Oskar Werner
Oskar Werner
-Early life:Born Oskar Josef Bschließmayer in Vienna, Werner spent much of his childhood in the care of his grandmother, who entertained him with stories about the Burgtheater, the Austrian state theatre, where he was accepted at the age of eighteen by Lothar Müthel. He was the youngest person ever...
, Michael Dunn, Elizabeth Ashley
Elizabeth Ashley
Elizabeth Ashley is an American actress who first came to prominence as the ingenue in the Broadway play Take Her, She's Mine, which earned her a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Play.-Early life:...
, George Segal
George Segal
George Segal is an American film, stage and television actor.-Early life:George Segal, Jr. was born in 1934 Great Neck, Long Island, New York, the son of Fannie Blanche and George Segal, Sr. He was educated at George School, a private Quaker preparatory boarding school near Newtown, Bucks County,...
, José Greco
José Greco
Jose Greco was a flamenco dancer and choreographer.He was born in Montorio nei Frentani, Italy of Italian parents. He was raised in New York City from the time he was 10 years old. He began dancing in Brooklyn with his sister Norina at a young age.He made his professional dancing debut in 1937 at...
and Heinz Rühmann
Heinz Rühmann
Heinrich Wilhelm "Heinz" Rühmann was a popular German film actor.-Life and work:Rühmann was born in Essen, Westphalia. His role in the 1930 movie Die Drei von der Tankstelle led him to film stardom. He remained highly popular as a comedic actor throughout the 1930s and early 1940s...
.
The movie was adapted by Abby Mann
Abby Mann
Abby Mann was an American film writer and producer.-Life and career:Born as Abraham Goodman in Philadelphia, he grew up in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was best known for his work on controversial subjects and social drama...
from the novel of the same name
Ship of Fools (Porter novel)
Ship of Fools is a 1962 novel by Katherine Anne Porter which tells the tale of a group of disparate characters sailing from Mexico to Europe aboard a German freighter and passenger ship...
by Katherine Anne Porter
Katherine Anne Porter
Katherine Anne Porter was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and political activist. Her 1962 novel Ship of Fools was the best-selling novel in America that year, but her short stories received much more critical acclaim...
. It was directed by Stanley Kramer
Stanley Kramer
Stanley Earl Kramer was an American film director and producer. Kramer was responsible for some of Hollywood's most famous "message" movies...
.
It was to be Vivien Leigh's last film and Christiane Schmidtmer
Christiane Schmidtmer
Christiane Schmidtmer was a German actress, fashion model and nude model of the 1960s and 1970s.-Early life:Christiane Schmidtmer was born in Mannheim, Germany to Gertrud and Jakob Schmidtmer on Christmas Eve 1939...
's first US production. The Fat Man was portrayed by Henry Calvin
Henry Calvin
Henry Calvin was an American comic actor best known for his role as Sergeant Garcia on Walt Disney's live-action television series Zorro .-Early life:...
, who was known for starring on Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
's television series Zorro as Sergeant Demetrio Lopez Garcia. Lt. Huebner was portrayed by Werner Klemperer
Werner Klemperer
Werner Klemperer was a comedic and dramatic actor, best known for his role as Colonel Klink on the CBS television sitcom, Hogan's Heroes.-Early life:...
, who was best known for his portrayal of Colonel Wilhelm Klink in the 1965-1971 CBS television comedy, Hogan's Heroes
Hogan's Heroes
Hogan's Heroes is an American television sitcom that ran for 168 episodes from September 17, 1965, to March 28, 1971, on the CBS network. The show was set in a German prisoner of war camp during the Second World War. Bob Crane had the starring role as Colonel Robert E...
.
Plot
A pastiche of characters board a German ocean liner in VeracruzVeracruz, Veracruz
Veracruz, officially known as Heroica Veracruz, is a major port city and municipality on the Gulf of Mexico in the Mexican state of Veracruz. The city is located in the central part of the state. It is located along Federal Highway 140 from the state capital Xalapa, and is the state's most...
, Mexico, for a voyage to Bremerhaven
Bremerhaven
Bremerhaven is a city at the seaport of the free city-state of Bremen, a state of the Federal Republic of Germany. It forms an enclave in the state of Lower Saxony and is located at the mouth of the River Weser on its eastern bank, opposite the town of Nordenham...
, Germany, along with 600 displaced workers in steerage, being deported from Cuba back to Spain, and a not-so-exotic band of entertainers, for whom the voyage is just a job. Some are happy to be bound for a rising Nazi Germany, some are apprehensive, while others appear oblivious to its potential dangers.
The ship's doctor, Schumann, takes a special interest in La Condesa, a countess from Spain who has an addiction to drugs and is being shipped to a German-run prison. Her sense of certain doom is contrasted by the doctor's determination to fight the forces of oppression, embodied by his insistence that the people in steerage be treated like human beings rather than animals. The doctor himself has a secret, a terminal heart condition, and his sympathy for the countess soon evolves into love.
Several passengers are invited to dine each night at the captain's table. There, some are amused and others offended by the Anti-Semitic rants of a German businessman named Rieber (Jose Ferrer
José Ferrer
José Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón , best known as José Ferrer, was a Puerto Rican actor, as well as a theater and film director...
). The Jewish Lowenthal is invited instead to join a dwarf named Glocken for his meals, and the two bond over their exclusion. Eventually a passenger named Freytag seems shocked to find himself ostracized when Rieber learns that his wife is Jewish.
Others aboard include a young American couple, David and Jenny, who bicker because David is unhappy at his lack of success with painting. A divorcée, Mary Treadwell, drinks and flirts, on a quest to recapture her youth in Paris. Bill Tenny is a former baseball player disappointed in the way his career never quite took off. They are distracted by the music and the professional dancers, whose flirtations seem to skirt the edges of solicitation, or dive right in to the seedy side of oblivion.
And when the passengers disembark, two are no longer with them -- the countess, who has been taken to an island prison, and the doctor, who has died.
Cast
- Vivien LeighVivien LeighVivien Leigh, Lady Olivier was an English actress. She won the Best Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire , a role she also played on stage in London's West End, as well as for her portrayal of the southern belle Scarlett O'Hara, alongside Clark...
... Mary Treadwell - Simone SignoretSimone SignoretSimone Signoret was a French cinema actress often hailed as one of France's greatest movie stars. She became the first French person to win an Academy Award, for her role in Room at the Top...
... La Condesa - José FerrerJosé FerrerJosé Vicente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón , best known as José Ferrer, was a Puerto Rican actor, as well as a theater and film director...
... Siegfried Rieber - Lee MarvinLee MarvinLee Marvin was an American film actor. Known for his gravelly voice, white hair and 6' 2" stature, Marvin at first did supporting roles, mostly villains, soldiers and other hardboiled characters, but after winning an Academy Award for Best Actor for his dual roles in Cat Ballou , he landed more...
... Bill Tenny - Oskar WernerOskar Werner-Early life:Born Oskar Josef Bschließmayer in Vienna, Werner spent much of his childhood in the care of his grandmother, who entertained him with stories about the Burgtheater, the Austrian state theatre, where he was accepted at the age of eighteen by Lothar Müthel. He was the youngest person ever...
... Dr. Willie Schumann - Elizabeth AshleyElizabeth AshleyElizabeth Ashley is an American actress who first came to prominence as the ingenue in the Broadway play Take Her, She's Mine, which earned her a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Play.-Early life:...
... Jenny Brown - George SegalGeorge SegalGeorge Segal is an American film, stage and television actor.-Early life:George Segal, Jr. was born in 1934 Great Neck, Long Island, New York, the son of Fannie Blanche and George Segal, Sr. He was educated at George School, a private Quaker preparatory boarding school near Newtown, Bucks County,...
... David - José GrecoJosé GrecoJose Greco was a flamenco dancer and choreographer.He was born in Montorio nei Frentani, Italy of Italian parents. He was raised in New York City from the time he was 10 years old. He began dancing in Brooklyn with his sister Norina at a young age.He made his professional dancing debut in 1937 at...
... Pepe - Michael Dunn ... Carl Glocken
- Charles KorvinCharles KorvinCharles Korvin was a film and television actor. The Piešťany, Hungary-born actor moved to the United States in 1940 after studying at the Sorbonne. Korvin made his stage debut on Broadway in 1943 using the name Geza Korvin...
... Capt. Thiele - Heinz RühmannHeinz RühmannHeinrich Wilhelm "Heinz" Rühmann was a popular German film actor.-Life and work:Rühmann was born in Essen, Westphalia. His role in the 1930 movie Die Drei von der Tankstelle led him to film stardom. He remained highly popular as a comedic actor throughout the 1930s and early 1940s...
(credited as "Heinz Ruehmann") ... Julius Lowenthal - Lilia SkalaLilia Skala-Early life:Skala was born Lilia Sofer in Vienna, Austria. Her mother, Katharina Skala, was Catholic, and her father, Julius Sofer, was Jewish and worked as a manufacturers representative for the Waldes Koh-i-noor Company. In the late 1930s, she was forced to flee her Nazi-occupied homeland with...
... Frau Hutten - Barbara LunaBarbara LunaBarBara Ann Luna is an American actress with an extensive list of roles in film, television, and shows. Notable roles included Five Weeks in a Balloon and Lt. Marlena Moreau in the classic Star Trek episode "Mirror, Mirror"...
... Amparo - Christiane SchmidtmerChristiane SchmidtmerChristiane Schmidtmer was a German actress, fashion model and nude model of the 1960s and 1970s.-Early life:Christiane Schmidtmer was born in Mannheim, Germany to Gertrud and Jakob Schmidtmer on Christmas Eve 1939...
... Lizzi Spokenkieker - Alf KjellinAlf KjellinAlf Kjellin was a Swedish film actor and director, who also appeared on some television shows.He was well established as a film actor when he occasionally took on roles in television shows. For example in 1965 he prominently guest-starred as Stalag Luft Kommandant Col...
... Freytag - Werner KlempererWerner KlempererWerner Klemperer was a comedic and dramatic actor, best known for his role as Colonel Klink on the CBS television sitcom, Hogan's Heroes.-Early life:...
... Lt. Huebner - John WengrafJohn WengrafJohn Wengraf was an Austrian actor.Wengraf emigrated to England in 1933 as the Nazis began their rise to power. Wengraf appeared unbilled in a couple of films, as well as in some of the first BBC live-television shows ever presented...
... Graf - Olga Fabian ... Frau Schmitt
- Gila GolanGila GolanGila Golan is an Israeli former fashion model and actress.Golan was born in Krakow, Poland, around 1940. Her exact birthday is not known, as she was hidden from the Nazis at a young age. She was adopted by a Roman Catholic family that found her left in a bundle at a train station during the...
... Elsa - Oscar BeregiOscar Beregi, Jr.Oscar Beregi, Jr. was a Hungarian-born film and television actor. He was the son of actor Oscar Beregi, Sr...
... Lutz - Stanley AdamsStanley Adams (actor)Stanley Adams was an American actor and screenwriter.-Career:Born in New York City, Adams had his first film role in 1952, when he played the bartender in the movie version of Death of a Salesman...
... Hutten - Karen Verne ... Frau Lutz
- Charles de Vries ... Johann
- Lydia Torea ... Pastora
- Henry CalvinHenry CalvinHenry Calvin was an American comic actor best known for his role as Sergeant Garcia on Walt Disney's live-action television series Zorro .-Early life:...
... Fat Man
Awards
The film won Academy AwardsAcademy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White
Academy Award for Best Art Direction
The Academy Awards are the oldest awards ceremony for achievements in motion pictures. The Academy Award for Best Art Direction recognizes achievement in art direction on a film. The films below are listed with their production year, so the Oscar 2000 for best art direction went to a film from 1999...
(Robert Clatworthy
Robert Clatworthy
Robert Clatworthy was an American art director. He won an Academy Award and was nominated four more times in the category Best Art Direction.-Selected filmography:...
, Joseph Kish
Joseph Kish
Joseph Kish was an American set decorator. He won an Academy Award and was nominated for four more in the category Best Art Direction...
) and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White
Academy Award for Best Cinematography
The Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work in one particular motion picture.-History:...
. It was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role
Academy Award for Best Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(Oskar Werner), Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
(Michael Dunn), Best Actress in a Leading Role
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(Simone Signoret), Best Costume Design, Black-and-White
Academy Award for Costume Design
The Academy Award for Best Costume Design is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for achievement in film costume design....
, Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...
and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...
.