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The Caine Mutiny (film)
Encyclopedia
The Caine Mutiny is a 1954 American drama film set during World War II
, directed by Edward Dmytryk
and produced by Stanley Kramer
. It stars Humphrey Bogart
, José Ferrer
, Van Johnson
and Fred MacMurray
, and is based on the 1951
Pulitzer Prize
winning novel by Herman Wouk
The Caine Mutiny
. The film depicts a mutiny
aboard a fictitious World War II
U.S. Navy destroyer minesweeper, the Caine, and the subsequent court-martial
of two officers.
Willis Seward "Willie" Keith (Robert Francis
) reports for duty aboard the Caine, his first assignment out of officer candidate school. Homeported in Pearl Harbor
, he is disappointed and horrified to find the Caine to be a small, battle-scarred destroyer-minesweeper. Its gruff captain, Lieutenant Commander
William H. DeVriess (Tom Tully
), has almost completely discarded spittle-and-polish discipline, and the crew of the Caine has become slovenly and superficially undisciplined – although their performance of their duties is, in fact, excellent. Keith has already met the executive officer
, Lieutenant
Stephen Maryk (Van Johnson
), and is introduced to the cynical communications officer, novelist LT Thomas Keefer (Fred MacMurray
), who refuses to equate the Caine with the rest of the Navy.
The captain is soon replaced by a 1936 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Lieutenant Commander Phillip Queeg
(Humphrey Bogart
), a no-nonsense veteran who has seen years of stressful duty in the Atlantic Fleet, LCDR Queeg having served on convoy duty in the North Atlantic against the German Navy. Queeg quickly attempts to re-instill discipline into the crew, warning: "[T]here are four ways of doing things: the right way, the wrong way, the Navy way, and my way. If they do things my way, we'll get along." Keefer makes a slight remark comparing Queeg to Captain William Bligh
, R.N.
The next day, the Caine is assigned to tow a target for gunnery practice. Queeg berates both Keith and Keefer over a crewman's appearance and, while distracted, cuts off the helmsman's warning; as a result, the Caine continues in a circle and cuts the towline to the target. Queeg refuses to accept responsibility and tries to cover it up.
Other incidents serve to undermine Queeg's authority. A constant theme is that whenever Queeg becomes nervous, he rolls two steel ball bearings in his right hand.
When the remains of a quart of strawberries is stolen from the officers' mess, the captain goes to absurd lengths to hunt the culprit. The truth of the missing strawberries, Ensign Harding told Queeg, "The mess boys ate the strawberries." (During World War II, African-Americans in the segregated navy served as ship stewards called "mess boys"; after the navy was integrated, the "mess boy" duties went to Filipino sailors.) Queeg relates a story from 1937 when, as an Ensign on a cruiser, cheese was stolen. It was found that a seaman had a duplicate key to the ship's pantry. Queeg found the guilty party and was commended for his actions.
More seriously, in combat, Queeg breaks off escorting a group of landing craft during an amphibious assault long before they reach the fiercely defended shore, dropping a yellow marker in the water instead and leaving them unsupported, leading the crew to derisively sing "The Yellowstain Blues". Afterwards, Queeg makes a speech to his officers, not explicitly apologizing for his behavior, but bending enough to ask for their support. His disgruntled subordinates do not respond.
Keefer begins trying to convince Maryk that he should relieve Queeg on the basis of mental illness under Article 184. Keefer convinces Maryk and Keith to accompany him to the admiral's flagship, and present their case against Queeg to Admiral
William F. Halsey, Jr.. When Halsey's aide tells the Caine officers that Halsey will see them, Keefer decides to back out and leaves the flagship as Maryk and Keith follow.
Matters come to a head during a violent typhoon. Maryk urgently recommends that they steer into the waves and take on ballast, but Queeg fears that the ballast will foul the fuel lines with salt water. Queeg's decisions seem to Maryk to threaten capsizing of the Caine. When Queeg appears to become paralyzed and unable to deal with the crisis, Maryk relieves him and takes over, with Keith's support.
When they return to port, Maryk and Keith face a court-martial for mutiny. After questioning them and Keefer, Lieutenant Barney Greenwald (José Ferrer
) reluctantly accepts the job of Maryk's defense counsel, which a number of other lawyers have already turned down. Greenwald is a decorated Naval Aviator
, having been wounded in combat, and his right arm is bandaged. The proceedings do not go well, as the self-serving Keefer has carefully managed to cover himself and denies any complicity. It was he who encouraged Maryk to question Queeg's sanity, playing amateur psychiatrist
, and Greenwald has warned him in private that, under Article 186 of Naval Regulations, Keefer could, on these grounds, be held as responsible as Maryk.
A Navy psychiatrist, Dr. Dixon (Whit Bissell
), testifies that Queeg does not have a mental illness, which the prosecution feels is enough to justify a conviction. But when Queeg is called to testify he snaps under Greenwald's tough cross-examination and gives blatantly paranoid testimony. Maryk is acquitted, and Keith is spared any charges.
After the acquittal, Maryk and his supporters celebrate at a hotel. Keefer joins them, not having the guts not to attend, although he lied in his testimony to protect himself. He thanks Maryk for not revealing this to the other officers. Maryk dismissively tells him that it is "over and done with," but at that moment a drunken Greenwald shows up, and, claiming a "guilty conscience," proceeds to reveal what really happened. Greenwald attacks the officers of the Caine for not appreciating the years of danger and hardship endured by Queeg, a career naval man, whereas the rest of them have only joined up due to the war. He then lambastes Maryk, Keith, and finally Keefer, for not supporting their captain when he most needed it and gets Maryk and Keith to admit that if they had given Queeg the support he had asked for he might not have frozen during the typhoon.
Greenwald then turns to the man who, in his opinion, should really have been on trial: Keefer. He denounces him as the real "author" of the Caine mutiny, who "hated the Navy" and manipulated the others while keeping his own hands officially clean. Maryk tells Greenwald to "forget it" but instead the lawyer exposes Keefer's double-cross in court, throws a glassful of champagne into his face and issues a contemptuous challenge: "If you wanna do anything about it, I'll be outside! I'm a lot drunker than you are, so it'll be a fair fight!" The other officers also depart, leaving Keefer alone in the room.
A few days later, Keith reports to his new ship, a destroyer, and is surprised to find himself once again serving under now-Commander
DeVriess as his captain. However, his new commanding officer lets the now Lieutenant, junior grade
Keith know that he will start with a clean slate.
Cast notes
As a result, producer Stanley Kramer purchased the rights himself for an estimated $60,000 – $70,000. After an unusually long pre-production period of fifteen months, due to the Navy's indecision, The Caine Mutiny went into production from 3 June to 24 August 1953, under the initial working title of Authority and Rebellion.
Location shooting took place in front of Royce Hall
at the University of California, Los Angeles
in the opening scene, at Naval Station Treasure Island in San Francisco, Pearl Harbor
, on the island of Oahu
in Hawaii
, and at Yosemite National Park
in California, the scene of the Yosemite Firefall
and Keith's romantic interlude with May Wynn while on leave.
The film premiered in New York City
on 24 June 1954, and went into general release on July 28. It cost an estimated $2 million to make and grossed $8.7 million in the United States.
was originally intended to play Queeg, but producer Stanley Kramer
opted for Humphrey Bogart instead. It took a while to get Bogart, however, even though he very much wanted to play the part, because Columbia was not willing to pay Bogart his usual top salary. Bogart commented about this to his wife, Lauren Bacall
: "This never happens to Cooper
or Grant
or Gable
, but always to me." During shooting, Bogart was already suffering from the earliest symptoms of the throat cancer that would eventually kill him. Bogart, a Navy veteran, had served as an enlisted man in the US Navy in World War I.
Lee Marvin
was cast as one of the sailors not only for his acting ability, but also because of his knowledge of ships at sea. Marvin had served in the U.S. Marines from the beginning of American involvement in World War II
through the Battle of Saipan
, in which he was wounded. As a result, Marvin became an unofficial technical adviser for the film.
This was the second of three films that José Ferrer
appeared in for producer Stanley Kramer
; the other two were Cyrano de Bergerac
, and Ship of Fools
, which is the only one of the three films that Kramer directed. Though his character of Barney Greenwald was supposed to be Jewish (a fact made relevant in the book but not in the film), Ferrer himself was not.
, which premiered on Broadway in January 1954 and ran for a year, Herman Wouk's attempt at writing the screenplay was considered "a disaster" by director Edward Dmytryk, and he was replaced by Stanley Roberts, who later quit when told to cut the film down to two hours. Those cuts, fifty pages worth, were done by Michael Blankfort
, who received an "additional dialog" credit.
Wouk's novel goes into much greater detail about Ensign Keith's experiences in midshipman school and in his early relationship with his girlfriend May Wynn. After the court-martial, he returns to the Caine and develops into a mature, competent Naval officer, something that is only hinted at in the film.
Also, in the novel, Captain Queeg is roughly thirty years old at the time of the mutiny. Bogart, however, was fifty-five at the time of filming. The character of Captain Queeg, as a 1936 USNA
graduate, would have typically been born around 1914. Bogart and men born in 1899 would have normally been in the USNA Class of 1921.
In the original novel and stage play, Greenwald is mentioned as being a Jew who appreciates more than anyone else the importance of keeping the Nazis as far away from America as possible, thus putting more emphasis on his sympathy for Queeg and contempt for the junior officers who have only signed on for the duration.
Maryk looks at the Commissioning Plaque on the Ward Room wall.
USS CAINE DMS 18
THIS SHIP IS NAMED FOR
ARTHUR WINGATE CAINE
COMMANDER US NAVY
WHO DIED OF WOUNDS RECEIVED
IN RUNNING GUN BATTLE
BETWEEN SUBMARINE AND
VESSEL HE COMMANDED
USS JONES
THE SUBMARINE WAS SUNK
IN THE ENGAGEMENT
The camera remains on the plaque for the viewer to read it with Maryk.
initially objected to the film's depiction of a mentally unbalanced man as the captain of one of its ships and the word "mutiny" in the film's title. After the script was altered somewhat, the Navy cooperated with Columbia Pictures
by providing ships, planes, combat boats, and access to Pearl Harbor
and the port of San Francisco. Following the opening credits, the epigraph states that the film's story is non-factual. No ship named USS Caine has ever existed, and no Navy captain has been relieved of command at sea under Articles 184–186: "There has never been a mutiny in a ship of the United States Navy. The truths of this film lie not in its incidents, but in the way a few men meet the crisis of their lives." However, while no mutiny has ever actually occurred in the U.S. Navy, at least one, the Somers Affair
, is alleged to have been planned.
The Caine was represented by the Navy destroyer minesweeper
USS Doyle (DMS-34) and the USS Thompson (DMS-38)
. This ship was not a 4-stack World War I–era ship, nicknamed a "four-piper," like the vessel in the novel because at the time the film was made, all such vessels had been scrapped. The Jones, the ship the Caine raced back to port early in the film, was represented by the minesweeper
USS Surfbird (AM-383)
. The hull number on the Caine is 18. USS Hamilton
(DD–141) was a Wickes class destroyer
in the United States Navy following World War I, later reclassified DMS-18 for service in World War II. The Hamilton was scrapped in 1946. Admiral Halsey's
unnamed flagship
was represented by the USS Kearsarge (CV-33)
, a post-war aircraft carrier
launched in 1946 (in actuality, and in the novel, Halsey flew his flag on the battleship
USS New Jersey
); a number of World War II–era fighter plane
s were placed atop the flight deck for the filming. USS Jacob Jones
(DD-61) the USS Jones of the Caine's commissioning plaque, had a similar fate in World War I. The Jacob Jones commanding officer, David Worth Bagley survived the sinking of his ship. The ship that Willis Keith conns out of port at the end of the film was the USS Richard B. Anderson (DD-786)
.
hired Dmytryk to direct a few low-budget films. The film's success resurrected Dmytryk's career. For refusing to answer questions about his ties to the American Communist Party
to the House Committee on Un-American Activities, he spent time in prison. After his release, Dmytryk spoke of his Party past, which consisted of a very brief membership in 1945, followed by pressure by other party members to put Communist propaganda into his films. In a second appearance before the House committee, he identified twenty six Party members.
He went on to direct Raintree County
with Montgomery Clift
and Elizabeth Taylor
; The Young Lions
with Clift, Marlon Brando
and Dean Martin
; a remake of the Marlene Dietrich
classic The Blue Angel, and the film version of Harold Robbins
's The Carpetbaggers
, among others.
Dmytryk felt The Caine Mutiny could have been better than it was. He thought the movie should have been three and a half to four hours long to fully flesh out the characters and tell the story completely, but Columbia's Harry Cohn
insisted on a two-hour limit.
, mostly for Warner Bros.
The stirring main theme was included in RCA Victor's collection of classic Bogart film scores, recorded by Charles Gerhardt
and the National Philharmonic Orchestra
.
The lyrics of the derisive song "Yellowstain Blues," which mocked Queeg's perceived cowardice during the landing incident, were written by Herman Wouk. They were drawn from The Caine Mutiny
, the novel on which the film was based.
for The Caine Mutiny was never actually officially released, and hence it is one of the rarest in existence; perhaps a dozen copies survive. RCA Records
planned an LP
release with musical excerpts on the first side and the complete dialogue of the climactic court-martial scene on side two. But Herman Wouk felt that including this scene was an infringement on his recently opened Broadway play
dealing with the court-martial, and he threatened to prohibit Columbia Pictures from making any further adaptations of his work. According to Wouk, "[Columbia head Harry] Cohn looked into the matter, called me back, and said in his tough gravelly voice, 'I've got you beat on the legalities, but I've listened to the record and it's no goddamn good, so I'm yanking it.'"
This film was a box office success and the second highest grossing film of 1954, earning $8,700,000. The #1 box office hit of that year was White Christmas
, which earned $12,000,000.
nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor (Humphrey Bogart
, losing to Marlon Brando
for On the Waterfront
), Best Supporting Actor (Tom Tully
), Best Screenplay, Best Sound Recording (John P. Livadary
), Best Film Editing, and Best Dramatic Score (Max Steiner).
Dmytryk was also nominated for a Directors Guild Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures.
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, directed by Edward Dmytryk
Edward Dmytryk
Edward Dmytryk was an American film director who was amongst the Hollywood Ten, a group of blacklisted film industry professionals who served time in prison for being in contempt of Congress during the McCarthy-era 'red scare'.-Early life:Dmytryk was born in Grand Forks, British Columbia, Canada,...
and produced 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 stars Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
, 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...
, Van Johnson
Van Johnson
Van Johnson was an American film and television actor and dancer who was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios during and after World War II....
and Fred MacMurray
Fred MacMurray
Frederick Martin "Fred" MacMurray was an American actor who appeared in more than 100 movies and a successful television series during a career that spanned nearly a half-century, from 1930 to the 1970s....
, and is based on the 1951
1951 in literature
The year 1951 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*E. E. Cummings and Rachel Carson are awarded Guggenheim Fellowships.*Flannery O'Connor is diagnosed with lupus....
Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction has been awarded for distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life. It originated as the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, which was awarded between 1918 and 1947.-1910s:...
winning novel by Herman Wouk
Herman Wouk
Herman Wouk is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American author of novels including The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War, and War and Remembrance.-Biography:...
The Caine Mutiny
The Caine Mutiny
The Caine Mutiny is a 1952 Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Herman Wouk. The novel grew out of Wouk's personal experiences aboard a destroyer-minesweeper in the Pacific in World War II and deals with, among other things, the moral and ethical decisions made at sea by the captains of ships...
. The film depicts a mutiny
Mutiny
Mutiny is a conspiracy among members of a group of similarly situated individuals to openly oppose, change or overthrow an authority to which they are subject...
aboard a fictitious World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
U.S. Navy destroyer minesweeper, the Caine, and the subsequent court-martial
Court-martial
A court-martial is a military court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of members of the armed forces subject to military law, and, if the defendant is found guilty, to decide upon punishment.Most militaries maintain a court-martial system to try cases in which a breach of...
of two officers.
Plot
Callow, rich EnsignEnsign (rank)
Ensign is a junior rank of a commissioned officer in the armed forces of some countries, normally in the infantry or navy. As the junior officer in an infantry regiment was traditionally the carrier of the ensign flag, the rank itself acquired the name....
Willis Seward "Willie" Keith (Robert Francis
Robert Francis (actor)
Robert Charles Francis was an American actor.Francis was born in Glendale, California and made his motion picture debut in They Rode West in 1954....
) reports for duty aboard the Caine, his first assignment out of officer candidate school. Homeported in Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
, he is disappointed and horrified to find the Caine to be a small, battle-scarred destroyer-minesweeper. Its gruff captain, Lieutenant Commander
Lieutenant Commander
Lieutenant Commander is a commissioned officer rank in many navies. The rank is superior to a lieutenant and subordinate to a commander...
William H. DeVriess (Tom Tully
Tom Tully
Tom Tully was an American actor.-Biography:Born in Durango, Colorado, Thomas Kane Tulley served in the United States Navy, was a private pilot and worked as junior reporter for the Denver Post before going into acting because he felt the pay was better. Tully started out on stage before eventually...
), has almost completely discarded spittle-and-polish discipline, and the crew of the Caine has become slovenly and superficially undisciplined – although their performance of their duties is, in fact, excellent. Keith has already met the executive officer
Executive officer
An executive officer is generally a person responsible for running an organization, although the exact nature of the role varies depending on the organization.-Administrative law:...
, Lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
Stephen Maryk (Van Johnson
Van Johnson
Van Johnson was an American film and television actor and dancer who was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios during and after World War II....
), and is introduced to the cynical communications officer, novelist LT Thomas Keefer (Fred MacMurray
Fred MacMurray
Frederick Martin "Fred" MacMurray was an American actor who appeared in more than 100 movies and a successful television series during a career that spanned nearly a half-century, from 1930 to the 1970s....
), who refuses to equate the Caine with the rest of the Navy.
The captain is soon replaced by a 1936 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Lieutenant Commander Phillip Queeg
Captain Queeg
Lieutenant Commander Philip Francis Queeg, USN, is a fictional character in Herman Wouk's 1951 novel The Caine Mutiny. He is also a character in the identically titled 1954 film adaptation of the novel and in The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, the Broadway theatre adaptation of the novel that opened...
(Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
), a no-nonsense veteran who has seen years of stressful duty in the Atlantic Fleet, LCDR Queeg having served on convoy duty in the North Atlantic against the German Navy. Queeg quickly attempts to re-instill discipline into the crew, warning: "[T]here are four ways of doing things: the right way, the wrong way, the Navy way, and my way. If they do things my way, we'll get along." Keefer makes a slight remark comparing Queeg to Captain William Bligh
William Bligh
Vice Admiral William Bligh FRS RN was an officer of the British Royal Navy and a colonial administrator. A notorious mutiny occurred during his command of HMAV Bounty in 1789; Bligh and his loyal men made a remarkable voyage to Timor, after being set adrift in the Bounty's launch by the mutineers...
, R.N.
The next day, the Caine is assigned to tow a target for gunnery practice. Queeg berates both Keith and Keefer over a crewman's appearance and, while distracted, cuts off the helmsman's warning; as a result, the Caine continues in a circle and cuts the towline to the target. Queeg refuses to accept responsibility and tries to cover it up.
Other incidents serve to undermine Queeg's authority. A constant theme is that whenever Queeg becomes nervous, he rolls two steel ball bearings in his right hand.
When the remains of a quart of strawberries is stolen from the officers' mess, the captain goes to absurd lengths to hunt the culprit. The truth of the missing strawberries, Ensign Harding told Queeg, "The mess boys ate the strawberries." (During World War II, African-Americans in the segregated navy served as ship stewards called "mess boys"; after the navy was integrated, the "mess boy" duties went to Filipino sailors.) Queeg relates a story from 1937 when, as an Ensign on a cruiser, cheese was stolen. It was found that a seaman had a duplicate key to the ship's pantry. Queeg found the guilty party and was commended for his actions.
More seriously, in combat, Queeg breaks off escorting a group of landing craft during an amphibious assault long before they reach the fiercely defended shore, dropping a yellow marker in the water instead and leaving them unsupported, leading the crew to derisively sing "The Yellowstain Blues". Afterwards, Queeg makes a speech to his officers, not explicitly apologizing for his behavior, but bending enough to ask for their support. His disgruntled subordinates do not respond.
Keefer begins trying to convince Maryk that he should relieve Queeg on the basis of mental illness under Article 184. Keefer convinces Maryk and Keith to accompany him to the admiral's flagship, and present their case against Queeg to Admiral
Admiral
Admiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral and above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet . It is usually abbreviated to "Adm" or "ADM"...
William F. Halsey, Jr.. When Halsey's aide tells the Caine officers that Halsey will see them, Keefer decides to back out and leaves the flagship as Maryk and Keith follow.
Matters come to a head during a violent typhoon. Maryk urgently recommends that they steer into the waves and take on ballast, but Queeg fears that the ballast will foul the fuel lines with salt water. Queeg's decisions seem to Maryk to threaten capsizing of the Caine. When Queeg appears to become paralyzed and unable to deal with the crisis, Maryk relieves him and takes over, with Keith's support.
When they return to port, Maryk and Keith face a court-martial for mutiny. After questioning them and Keefer, Lieutenant Barney Greenwald (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...
) reluctantly accepts the job of Maryk's defense counsel, which a number of other lawyers have already turned down. Greenwald is a decorated Naval Aviator
Naval Aviator
A United States Naval Aviator is a qualified pilot in the United States Navy, Marine Corps or Coast Guard.-Naming Conventions:Most Naval Aviators are Unrestricted Line Officers; however, a small number of Limited Duty Officers and Chief Warrant Officers are also trained as Naval Aviators.Until 1981...
, having been wounded in combat, and his right arm is bandaged. The proceedings do not go well, as the self-serving Keefer has carefully managed to cover himself and denies any complicity. It was he who encouraged Maryk to question Queeg's sanity, playing amateur psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
, and Greenwald has warned him in private that, under Article 186 of Naval Regulations, Keefer could, on these grounds, be held as responsible as Maryk.
A Navy psychiatrist, Dr. Dixon (Whit Bissell
Whit Bissell
Whitner Nutting Bissell , better known as Whit Bissell, was an American actor.-Early life:Born in New York City, Bissell was the son of prominent surgeon Dr. J. Dougal Bissell. He trained with the Carolina Playmakers, a theatrical organization associated with the University of North Carolina at...
), testifies that Queeg does not have a mental illness, which the prosecution feels is enough to justify a conviction. But when Queeg is called to testify he snaps under Greenwald's tough cross-examination and gives blatantly paranoid testimony. Maryk is acquitted, and Keith is spared any charges.
After the acquittal, Maryk and his supporters celebrate at a hotel. Keefer joins them, not having the guts not to attend, although he lied in his testimony to protect himself. He thanks Maryk for not revealing this to the other officers. Maryk dismissively tells him that it is "over and done with," but at that moment a drunken Greenwald shows up, and, claiming a "guilty conscience," proceeds to reveal what really happened. Greenwald attacks the officers of the Caine for not appreciating the years of danger and hardship endured by Queeg, a career naval man, whereas the rest of them have only joined up due to the war. He then lambastes Maryk, Keith, and finally Keefer, for not supporting their captain when he most needed it and gets Maryk and Keith to admit that if they had given Queeg the support he had asked for he might not have frozen during the typhoon.
Greenwald then turns to the man who, in his opinion, should really have been on trial: Keefer. He denounces him as the real "author" of the Caine mutiny, who "hated the Navy" and manipulated the others while keeping his own hands officially clean. Maryk tells Greenwald to "forget it" but instead the lawyer exposes Keefer's double-cross in court, throws a glassful of champagne into his face and issues a contemptuous challenge: "If you wanna do anything about it, I'll be outside! I'm a lot drunker than you are, so it'll be a fair fight!" The other officers also depart, leaving Keefer alone in the room.
A few days later, Keith reports to his new ship, a destroyer, and is surprised to find himself once again serving under now-Commander
Commander
Commander is a naval rank which is also sometimes used as a military title depending on the individual customs of a given military service. Commander is also used as a rank or title in some organizations outside of the armed forces, particularly in police and law enforcement.-Commander as a naval...
DeVriess as his captain. However, his new commanding officer lets the now Lieutenant, junior grade
Lieutenant, Junior Grade
Lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer rank in the United States Navy, the United States Coast Guard, the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, United States Merchant Marine USMM, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Corps, with the pay grade...
Keith know that he will start with a clean slate.
Cast
- Humphrey BogartHumphrey BogartHumphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
as Lieutenant Commander Philip Francis QueegCaptain QueegLieutenant Commander Philip Francis Queeg, USN, is a fictional character in Herman Wouk's 1951 novel The Caine Mutiny. He is also a character in the identically titled 1954 film adaptation of the novel and in The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, the Broadway theatre adaptation of the novel that opened... - 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...
as Lieutenant Barney Greenwald - Van JohnsonVan JohnsonVan Johnson was an American film and television actor and dancer who was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios during and after World War II....
as Lieutenant Steve Maryk - Fred MacMurrayFred MacMurrayFrederick Martin "Fred" MacMurray was an American actor who appeared in more than 100 movies and a successful television series during a career that spanned nearly a half-century, from 1930 to the 1970s....
as Lieutenant Tom Keefer - Robert FrancisRobert Francis (actor)Robert Charles Francis was an American actor.Francis was born in Glendale, California and made his motion picture debut in They Rode West in 1954....
as Ensign (later Lieutenant, junior grade) Willis Seward "Willie" Keith - May WynnMay WynnMay Wynn is an American dancer, singer, and actress.She was born as Donna Lee Hickey, and began performing under that name at New York's Copacabana nightclub in 1947, when she was seventeen...
as May Wynn - Tom TullyTom TullyTom Tully was an American actor.-Biography:Born in Durango, Colorado, Thomas Kane Tulley served in the United States Navy, was a private pilot and worked as junior reporter for the Denver Post before going into acting because he felt the pay was better. Tully started out on stage before eventually...
as Lieutenant Commander (later Commander) (William H.) DeVriess - E. G. MarshallE. G. MarshallE. G. Marshall was an American actor, best known for his television roles as the lawyer Lawrence Preston on The Defenders in the 1960s, and as neurosurgeon David Craig on The Bold Ones: The New Doctors in the 1970s...
as Lieutenant Commander (John) Challee, the prosecutor - Arthur FranzArthur FranzArthur Franz was a B-movie actor whose most notable role was as Lieutenant, Junior Grade H. Paynter, Jr. in The Caine Mutiny. He also appeared in Roseanna McCoy , Invaders from Mars , Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man and The Unholy Wife , among others...
as Lieutenant, junior grade, H. Paynter Jr. - 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...
as "Meatball" (Dlugatch) - Warner AndersonWarner AndersonWarner Anderson was an American actor. He had a small part in a film in 1915. He had supporting parts in several films through the years....
as Captain Blakely, president of the court-martial - Claude AkinsClaude AkinsClaude Marion Akins was an American actor with a long career on stage, screen and television.Powerful in appearance and voice, Akins could be counted on to play the clever tough guy, on the side of good or bad, in movies and television. He is best remembered as Sheriff Lobo in the 1970s TV series...
as "Horrible" (Everett Black) - Katherine WarrenKatherine WarrenKatherine Warren was an American film and television actress. She appeared in over 30 films and dozens of television programs including the TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents and the films Jailhouse Rock, The Glenn Miller Story, All the King's Men and The Caine Mutiny.-External links:...
as Mrs. Keith, Ensign Keith's mother - Jerry ParisJerry ParisJerry Paris was an American actor and director best known for playing Jerry Helper, the dentist and next door neighbor of Rob and Laura Petrie, on The Dick Van Dyke Show.-Life and career:...
as Ensign Barney Harding - Whit BissellWhit BissellWhitner Nutting Bissell , better known as Whit Bissell, was an American actor.-Early life:Born in New York City, Bissell was the son of prominent surgeon Dr. J. Dougal Bissell. He trained with the Carolina Playmakers, a theatrical organization associated with the University of North Carolina at...
as Navy psychiatrist Lieutenant Commander Dickson, Medical Corps - Kenneth MacDonaldKenneth MacDonald (American actor)Kenneth MacDonald was an American film actor. Born in Portland, Indiana, MacDonald made more than 220 film and television appearances between 1931 and 1970.-Career:...
as a court martial board member (uncredited) - James BestJames BestJames Best is an American actor best known for his role as bumbling Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in the CBS television series The Dukes of Hazzard. He has also worked as an acting coach, artist, and musician.-Early years:...
as Lieutenant Jorgensen (uncredited) - May Wynn's song "I Can't Believe that You're in Love with Me" sung by Jo Ann GreerJo Ann GreerJo Ann Greer had one of the most distinctive and elegant voices, yet least-known faces of all the successful jazz and pop singers in show business....
Cast notes
- The Caine Mutiny was only the second film of Robert Francis, who was being groomed for stardom – but on 31 July 1955, he was killed when the private plane he was piloting crashed shortly after take off from BurbankBurbank, CaliforniaBurbank is a city in Los Angeles County in Southern California, United States, north of downtown Los Angeles. The estimated population in 2010 was 103,340....
airport.
Production
When the U.S. Navy hesitated about endorsing a possible film and aiding the production, studios shied away from purchasing the film rights to Herman Wouk's novel.As a result, producer Stanley Kramer purchased the rights himself for an estimated $60,000 – $70,000. After an unusually long pre-production period of fifteen months, due to the Navy's indecision, The Caine Mutiny went into production from 3 June to 24 August 1953, under the initial working title of Authority and Rebellion.
Location shooting took place in front of Royce Hall
Royce Hall
Royce Hall is a building on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles . Designed by the Los Angeles firm of Allison & Allison in the Italian Romanesque Revival style and completed in 1929, it is one of the four original buildings on UCLA's Westwood campus and has come to be the...
at the University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
in the opening scene, at Naval Station Treasure Island in San Francisco, Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
, on the island of Oahu
Oahu
Oahu or Oahu , known as "The Gathering Place", is the third largest of the Hawaiian Islands and most populous of the islands in the U.S. state of Hawaii. The state capital Honolulu is located on the southeast coast...
in Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
, and at Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park is a United States National Park spanning eastern portions of Tuolumne, Mariposa and Madera counties in east central California, United States. The park covers an area of and reaches across the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain chain...
in California, the scene of the Yosemite Firefall
Yosemite Firefall
The Yosemite Firefall was a summer time ritual that lasted from 1872 until 1968 in which burning hot embers were dropped a height of about 3000 feet from the top of Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park down to the valley below, and from a distance looked similar to a glowing water fall because...
and Keith's romantic interlude with May Wynn while on leave.
The film premiered in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
on 24 June 1954, and went into general release on July 28. It cost an estimated $2 million to make and grossed $8.7 million in the United States.
Casting
Richard WidmarkRichard Widmark
Richard Weedt Widmark was an American film, stage and television actor.He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as the villainous Tommy Udo in his debut film, Kiss of Death...
was originally intended to play Queeg, but producer 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...
opted for Humphrey Bogart instead. It took a while to get Bogart, however, even though he very much wanted to play the part, because Columbia was not willing to pay Bogart his usual top salary. Bogart commented about this to his wife, Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall is an American film and stage actress and model, known for her distinctive husky voice and sultry looks.She first emerged as leading lady in the Humphrey Bogart film To Have And Have Not and continued on in the film noir genre, with appearances in The Big Sleep and Dark Passage ,...
: "This never happens to Cooper
Gary Cooper
Frank James Cooper, known professionally as Gary Cooper, was an American film actor. He was renowned for his quiet, understated acting style and his stoic, but at times intense screen persona, which was particularly well suited to the many Westerns he made...
or Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
or Gable
Clark Gable
William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...
, but always to me." During shooting, Bogart was already suffering from the earliest symptoms of the throat cancer that would eventually kill him. Bogart, a Navy veteran, had served as an enlisted man in the US Navy in World War I.
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...
was cast as one of the sailors not only for his acting ability, but also because of his knowledge of ships at sea. Marvin had served in the U.S. Marines from the beginning of American involvement in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
through the Battle of Saipan
Battle of Saipan
The Battle of Saipan was a battle of the Pacific campaign of World War II, fought on the island of Saipan in the Mariana Islands from 15 June-9 July 1944. The Allied invasion fleet embarking the expeditionary forces left Pearl Harbor on 5 June 1944, the day before Operation Overlord in Europe was...
, in which he was wounded. As a result, Marvin became an unofficial technical adviser for the film.
This was the second of three films that 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...
appeared in for producer 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...
; the other two were Cyrano de Bergerac
Cyrano de Bergerac (1950 film)
Cyrano de Bergerac is a 1950 black-and-white feature film based on the 1897 French Alexandrine verse drama Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand. It uses poet Brian Hooker's 1923 English blank verse translation as the basis for its screenplay...
, and Ship of Fools
Ship of Fools (film)
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...
, which is the only one of the three films that Kramer directed. Though his character of Barney Greenwald was supposed to be Jewish (a fact made relevant in the book but not in the film), Ferrer himself was not.
Script
Despite the fact Wouk had already worked the material from the novel into a stage play, The Caine Mutiny Court-MartialThe Caine Mutiny Court-Martial
The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial is a two-act play by Herman Wouk, which he adapted from his own novel, The Caine Mutiny.Wouk's novel covered a long stretch of time aboard the USS Caine, a Navy minesweeper in the Pacific...
, which premiered on Broadway in January 1954 and ran for a year, Herman Wouk's attempt at writing the screenplay was considered "a disaster" by director Edward Dmytryk, and he was replaced by Stanley Roberts, who later quit when told to cut the film down to two hours. Those cuts, fifty pages worth, were done by Michael Blankfort
Michael Blankfort
Michael Blankfort was a Jewish-American screenwriter, author and playwright. He served as a front for the blacklisted Albert Maltz on the Academy Award-nominated screenplay of Broken Arrow . Among his own screenplays were The Juggler and The Caine Mutiny...
, who received an "additional dialog" credit.
Wouk's novel goes into much greater detail about Ensign Keith's experiences in midshipman school and in his early relationship with his girlfriend May Wynn. After the court-martial, he returns to the Caine and develops into a mature, competent Naval officer, something that is only hinted at in the film.
Also, in the novel, Captain Queeg is roughly thirty years old at the time of the mutiny. Bogart, however, was fifty-five at the time of filming. The character of Captain Queeg, as a 1936 USNA
USNA
USNA may refer to:* United States Naval Academy* United States of North America. A fictional country including the modern USA as well as Canada in the 1985 computer game A Mind Forever Voyaging...
graduate, would have typically been born around 1914. Bogart and men born in 1899 would have normally been in the USNA Class of 1921.
In the original novel and stage play, Greenwald is mentioned as being a Jew who appreciates more than anyone else the importance of keeping the Nazis as far away from America as possible, thus putting more emphasis on his sympathy for Queeg and contempt for the junior officers who have only signed on for the duration.
Commissioning Plaque
Maryk and Keefer remain in the Ward Room after Queeg has addressed the officers after the "yellow stain" incident.Maryk looks at the Commissioning Plaque on the Ward Room wall.
USS CAINE DMS 18
THIS SHIP IS NAMED FOR
ARTHUR WINGATE CAINE
COMMANDER US NAVY
WHO DIED OF WOUNDS RECEIVED
IN RUNNING GUN BATTLE
BETWEEN SUBMARINE AND
VESSEL HE COMMANDED
USS JONES
THE SUBMARINE WAS SUNK
IN THE ENGAGEMENT
The camera remains on the plaque for the viewer to read it with Maryk.
Navy involvement
The NavyUnited States Department of the Navy
The Department of the Navy of the United States of America was established by an Act of Congress on 30 April 1798, to provide a government organizational structure to the United States Navy and, from 1834 onwards, for the United States Marine Corps, and when directed by the President, of the...
initially objected to the film's depiction of a mentally unbalanced man as the captain of one of its ships and the word "mutiny" in the film's title. After the script was altered somewhat, the Navy cooperated with Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
by providing ships, planes, combat boats, and access to Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
and the port of San Francisco. Following the opening credits, the epigraph states that the film's story is non-factual. No ship named USS Caine has ever existed, and no Navy captain has been relieved of command at sea under Articles 184–186: "There has never been a mutiny in a ship of the United States Navy. The truths of this film lie not in its incidents, but in the way a few men meet the crisis of their lives." However, while no mutiny has ever actually occurred in the U.S. Navy, at least one, the Somers Affair
USS Somers (1842)
The second USS Somers was a brig in the United States Navy during the Mexican-American War, infamous for being the only U.S. Navy ship to undergo a mutiny which led to executions....
, is alleged to have been planned.
The Caine was represented by the Navy destroyer minesweeper
Destroyer minesweeper
Destroyer minesweeper was a designation given by the United States Navy to a series of destroyers that were converted into high-speed ocean-going minesweepers for service during World War II. The hull number for such a ship began "DMS"...
USS Doyle (DMS-34) and the USS Thompson (DMS-38)
USS Thompson (DD-627)
USS Thompson USS Thompson USS Thompson (DD-627 (later DMS-38) was first a Gleaves-class destroyer, then became an Ellyson-class destroyer minesweeper. She was the second Navy ship named "Thompson", and the first named in honor of Robert M...
. This ship was not a 4-stack World War I–era ship, nicknamed a "four-piper," like the vessel in the novel because at the time the film was made, all such vessels had been scrapped. The Jones, the ship the Caine raced back to port early in the film, was represented by the minesweeper
Minesweeper (ship)
A minesweeper is a small naval warship designed to counter the threat posed by naval mines. Minesweepers generally detect then neutralize mines in advance of other naval operations.-History:...
USS Surfbird (AM-383)
USS Surfbird (AM-383)
USS Surfbird was an built during World War II for the United States Navy. She was the only U.S. Navy ship named for the surfbird....
. The hull number on the Caine is 18. USS Hamilton
USS Hamilton
USS Hamilton may refer to more than one United States Navy ship:, a schooner acquired in 1812 and lost in 1813, a destroyer in commission from 1919 to 1922 and from 1930 to 1945, reclassified as a fast minesweeper in 1941 and as an auxiliary in 1945, patrol vessel in service from 1917 to 1918See...
(DD–141) was a Wickes class destroyer
Wickes class destroyer
The Wickes-class destroyers were a group of 111 destroyers built by the United States Navy in 1917-1919. Along with the 6 preceding Caldwell class and 155 subsequent Clemson-class destroyers, they formed the "flush-deck" or "four-stack" class. Only a few were completed in time to serve in World...
in the United States Navy following World War I, later reclassified DMS-18 for service in World War II. The Hamilton was scrapped in 1946. Admiral Halsey's
William Halsey, Jr.
Fleet Admiral William Frederick Halsey, Jr., United States Navy, , was a U.S. Naval officer. He commanded the South Pacific Area during the early stages of the Pacific War against Japan...
unnamed flagship
Flagship
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, reflecting the custom of its commander, characteristically a flag officer, flying a distinguishing flag...
was represented by the USS Kearsarge (CV-33)
USS Kearsarge (CV-33)
USS Kearsarge was one of 24 s completed during or shortly after World War II for the United States Navy. The ship was the third US Navy ship to bear the name, and was named for a Civil War-era steam sloop. Kearsarge was commissioned in March 1946...
, a post-war aircraft carrier
Aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...
launched in 1946 (in actuality, and in the novel, Halsey flew his flag on the battleship
Battleship
A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...
USS New Jersey
USS New Jersey (BB-62)
USS New Jersey , is an , and was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named in honor of the U.S. state of New Jersey. New Jersey earned more battle stars for combat actions than the other three completed Iowa-class battleships, and is the only U.S...
); a number of World War II–era fighter plane
Fighter aircraft
A fighter aircraft is a military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat with other aircraft, as opposed to a bomber, which is designed primarily to attack ground targets...
s were placed atop the flight deck for the filming. USS Jacob Jones
USS Jacob Jones
Three ships of the United States Navy have been named USS Jacob Jones, in honor of Jacob Jones:, was a Tucker-class destroyer, commissioned in 1916 and sunk by a torpedo in December 1917...
(DD-61) the USS Jones of the Caine's commissioning plaque, had a similar fate in World War I. The Jacob Jones commanding officer, David Worth Bagley survived the sinking of his ship. The ship that Willis Keith conns out of port at the end of the film was the USS Richard B. Anderson (DD-786)
USS Richard B. Anderson (DD-786)
USS Richard B. Anderson was a Gearing-class destroyer of the United States Navy, named for USMC Private First Class Richard B. Anderson , who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for heroism during the Battle of Kwajalein....
.
Director
Before handing him The Caine Mutiny, Stanley KramerStanley Kramer
Stanley Earl Kramer was an American film director and producer. Kramer was responsible for some of Hollywood's most famous "message" movies...
hired Dmytryk to direct a few low-budget films. The film's success resurrected Dmytryk's career. For refusing to answer questions about his ties to the American Communist Party
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
to the House Committee on Un-American Activities, he spent time in prison. After his release, Dmytryk spoke of his Party past, which consisted of a very brief membership in 1945, followed by pressure by other party members to put Communist propaganda into his films. In a second appearance before the House committee, he identified twenty six Party members.
He went on to direct Raintree County
Raintree County (film)
Raintree County is a 1957 Technicolor film drama about the American Civil War. It was directed by Edward Dmytryk. The film stars Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Eva Marie Saint, and Lee Marvin....
with Montgomery Clift
Montgomery Clift
Edward Montgomery Clift was an American film and stage actor. The New York Times’ obituary noted his portrayal of "moody, sensitive young men"....
and Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
; The Young Lions
The Young Lions
The Young Lions is a 1958 war drama film directed by Edward Dmytryk, based upon the 1949 novel of the same name by Irwin Shaw, and starring Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and Dean Martin.-Outline:...
with Clift, Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...
and Dean Martin
Dean Martin
Dean Martin was an American singer, film actor, television star and comedian. Martin's hit singles included "Memories Are Made of This", "That's Amore", "Everybody Loves Somebody", "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", "Sway", "Volare" and "Ain't That a Kick in the Head?"...
; a remake of the Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...
classic The Blue Angel, and the film version of Harold Robbins
Harold Robbins
Harold Robbins was one of the best-selling American authors of all time. During his career, he wrote over 25 best-sellers, selling over 750 million copies in 32 languages....
's The Carpetbaggers
The Carpetbaggers
The Carpetbaggers is the title of a 1961 bestselling novel by Harold Robbins, which was adapted into a 1964 film of the same title.The term "carpetbagger" refers to an outsider relocating to exploit locals . It derives from post-bellum South usage, where it referred specifically to opportunistic...
, among others.
Dmytryk felt The Caine Mutiny could have been better than it was. He thought the movie should have been three and a half to four hours long to fully flesh out the characters and tell the story completely, but Columbia's Harry Cohn
Harry Cohn
Harry Cohn was the American president and production director of Columbia Pictures.-Career:Cohn was born to a working-class German-Jewish family in New York City. In later years, he appears to have disparaged his heritage...
insisted on a two-hour limit.
Music
This was the last of a number of Bogart films scored by composer Max SteinerMax Steiner
Max Steiner was an Austrian composer of music for theatre productions and films. He later became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Trained by the great classical music composers Brahms and Mahler, he was one of the first composers who primarily wrote music for motion pictures, and as...
, mostly for Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
The stirring main theme was included in RCA Victor's collection of classic Bogart film scores, recorded by Charles Gerhardt
Charles Gerhardt (conductor)
Charles Allan Gerhardt was a conductor, record producer, and arranger.-Early years:Gerhardt grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he studied the piano at age five and composition at age nine...
and the National Philharmonic Orchestra
National Philharmonic Orchestra
The National Philharmonic Orchestra was a British orchestra created exclusively for recording purposes. It was founded by RCA producer Charles Gerhardt and orchestra leader / contractor Sidney Sax due in part to the requirements of the Reader's Digest-History:...
.
The lyrics of the derisive song "Yellowstain Blues," which mocked Queeg's perceived cowardice during the landing incident, were written by Herman Wouk. They were drawn from The Caine Mutiny
The Caine Mutiny
The Caine Mutiny is a 1952 Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Herman Wouk. The novel grew out of Wouk's personal experiences aboard a destroyer-minesweeper in the Pacific in World War II and deals with, among other things, the moral and ethical decisions made at sea by the captains of ships...
, the novel on which the film was based.
Soundtrack
The original soundtrack albumSoundtrack album
A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television program. In some cases, not all the tracks from the movie are included in the album; however there are rare cases of songs in the trailers that do not appear in...
for The Caine Mutiny was never actually officially released, and hence it is one of the rarest in existence; perhaps a dozen copies survive. RCA Records
RCA Records
RCA Records is one of the flagship labels of Sony Music Entertainment. The RCA initials stand for Radio Corporation of America , which was the parent corporation from 1929 to 1985 and a partner from 1985 to 1986.RCA's Canadian unit is Sony's oldest label...
planned an LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
release with musical excerpts on the first side and the complete dialogue of the climactic court-martial scene on side two. But Herman Wouk felt that including this scene was an infringement on his recently opened Broadway play
The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial
The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial is a two-act play by Herman Wouk, which he adapted from his own novel, The Caine Mutiny.Wouk's novel covered a long stretch of time aboard the USS Caine, a Navy minesweeper in the Pacific...
dealing with the court-martial, and he threatened to prohibit Columbia Pictures from making any further adaptations of his work. According to Wouk, "[Columbia head Harry] Cohn looked into the matter, called me back, and said in his tough gravelly voice, 'I've got you beat on the legalities, but I've listened to the record and it's no goddamn good, so I'm yanking it.'"
Reception
Film critic Tim Dirks has called Bogart's turn as Lieutenant Commander Philip Queeg his last great film performance.This film was a box office success and the second highest grossing film of 1954, earning $8,700,000. The #1 box office hit of that year was White Christmas
White Christmas (film)
White Christmas is a 1954 Technicolor musical film starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye that features the songs of Irving Berlin, including the titular "White Christmas"...
, which earned $12,000,000.
Awards and honors
The film received Oscar27th Academy Awards
The 27th Academy Awards honored the best films produced in 1954. The Best Picture winner, On the Waterfront, was produced by Sam Spiegel and directed by Elia Kazan...
nominations for Best Picture, Best Actor (Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
, losing to Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...
for On the Waterfront
On the Waterfront
On the Waterfront is a 1954 American drama film about union violence and corruption among longshoremen. The film was directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. It stars Marlon Brando, Rod Steiger, Eva Marie Saint, Lee J. Cobb and Karl Malden. The soundtrack score was composed by Leonard...
), Best Supporting Actor (Tom Tully
Tom Tully
Tom Tully was an American actor.-Biography:Born in Durango, Colorado, Thomas Kane Tulley served in the United States Navy, was a private pilot and worked as junior reporter for the Denver Post before going into acting because he felt the pay was better. Tully started out on stage before eventually...
), Best Screenplay, Best Sound Recording (John P. Livadary
John P. Livadary
John Paul Livadary was a sound designer.He started work in 1928 at Columbia Pictures and won the Academy Award for Best Sound three times, in a career that spanned 30 years...
), Best Film Editing, and Best Dramatic Score (Max Steiner).
Dmytryk was also nominated for a Directors Guild Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures.
Influence
- When Briton Maurice Micklewhite first became an actor, he adopted the stage nameStage nameA stage name, also called a showbiz name or screen name, is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers such as actors, wrestlers, comedians, and musicians.-Motivation to use a stage name:...
"Michael Scott." He was later told that another actor was already using the same name, and that he had to come up with a new one immediately. Speaking to his agent from a telephone box in Leicester SquareLeicester SquareLeicester Square is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. The Square lies within an area bound by Lisle Street, to the north; Charing Cross Road, to the east; Orange Street, to the south; and Whitcomb Street, to the west...
in LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Micklewhite looked around for inspiration, noted that The Caine Mutiny was being shown at the Odeon Cinema, and thus changed his name to "Michael CaineMichael CaineSir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules ....
", which he has retained since. He has joked in interviews that had he looked the other way, he would have ended up as "Michael One Hundred and One DalmatiansOne Hundred and One DalmatiansOne Hundred and One Dalmatians, often abbreviated as 101 Dalmatians, is a 1961 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and based on the novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith...
."
- The British science-fiction sitcom Red DwarfRed DwarfRed Dwarf is a British comedy franchise which primarily comprises eight series of a television science fiction sitcom that aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999 and Dave from 2009–present. It gained cult following. It was created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, who also wrote the first six series...
is about a huge spaceship which is run by an inept, even incompetent, computer called HollyHolly (Red Dwarf)Holly is the ship's computer on the science fiction situation comedy Red Dwarf.The character is played by Norman Lovett in Series I and II and, following a "head sex change" to look like his parallel universe alter ego "Hilly", played by Hattie Hayridge in the series 3 episode Backwards, is female...
. In one episodeQueeg (Red Dwarf episode)"Queeg" is the fifth episode of science fiction sitcom Red Dwarf series two and the eleventh in the series run. It premiered on the British television channel BBC2 on 4 October 1988. Written by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, and directed by Ed Bye, the plot features a backup computer named Queeg that...
, Holly is apparently replaced by a back-up computer called Queeg. Whereas Holly is sloppy and easy-going, Queeg is ruthless, authoritarian and by-the-book, bringing misery to the lives of the crew, in ways similar to Bogart's character.
- In "The Doomsday Machine" episode of the original Star TrekStar TrekStar Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
series, William WindomWilliam Windom (actor)William Windom is an American actor. He is perhaps best known for his work on television, including several episodes of The Twilight Zone; playing the character of Glen Morley, a congressman from Minnesota like his own great-grandfather and namesake in The Farmer's Daughter; the character of John...
's character of Commodore Matthew Decker, though the installment is a re-working of Moby Dick, or--The Whale with Decker as a re-envisioning of Ahab, conducts himself similarly to Phillip Queeg, and he even rubs together a pair of square tape cassettes in one hand during duress as Queeg would roll steel balls under pressure.
- In the "Captain Crocodile" episode of The MonkeesThe MonkeesThe Monkees are an American pop rock group. Assembled in Los Angeles in 1966 by Robert "Bob" Rafelson and Bert Schneider for the American television series The Monkees, which aired from 1966 to 1968, the musical acting quartet was composed of Americans Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork,...
television series, near the end of the episode, Captain Crocodile, believing that he is ready to be fired, begins rolling two steel balls just as Phillip Queeg did. In addition, in the episode "Hitting The High Seas", Micky asks, "What did they do to Captain Queeg?" To this, Peter replies, "Steal his strawberries."
- In Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, members of the human resistance serve aboard the submarine USS Jimmy CarterUSS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23)USS Jimmy Carter , the third and last Seawolf-class submarine, is the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for former President Jimmy Carter, who served in the United States Navy as a Communications Officer, Sonar Officer, Electronics Officer, Weapons Officer, and Supply Officer while...
. It is piloted by a reprogrammed TerminatorTerminator (character concept)In the Terminator film series, a terminator is an autonomous robot, typically humanoid, originally conceived as a virtually indestructible soldier and assassin, as well as an infiltrator....
that has been named Queeg by the crew.
See also
- Trial moviesTrial moviesTrial movies is a film genre, also commonly referred to as courtroom drama.-The American Bar Association's list:In 1989, the American Bar Association rated the twelve best trial films of all time, and provided a detailed and reasoned legal evaluation for its choices. Ten of them are in English; M...
- Typhoon Cobra (1944), an actual typhoon that threatened U.S. warships under circumstances similar to those in the book.