The Ghost Ship
Encyclopedia
The Ghost Ship is a black-and-white
horror
and crime film
(with mystery film
overtones) starring Richard Dix
, Russell Wade, and Skelton Knaggs. The film is about a young merchant marine
officer who begins to suspect that his ship's captain is mentally unbalanced and endangering the lives of the ship's crew. The ship's crew, however, believes the vessel to be haunted and curse
d. Several mysterious deaths occur. After the young officer files a negative report with the corporation which owns the ship, the captain fires him. But a shipmate, believing the officer to be AWOL
, kidnaps the young man and returns him to the vessel. The captain becomes enraged, and attempts to murder the young officer. The film was directed by Mark Robson
and produced by Val Lewton
for RKO Radio Pictures
.
—another Lewton production—and later in RKO's Zombies on Broadway
), Merriam attempts to expose the Captain's madness at a board of inquiry. He is helped by the local company agent, but Merriam is discredited and subsequently dismissed from service.
After the inquiry, the captain admits to a female friend that he fears he is losing his mind. The perplexed friend dismisses the discussion. Soon after, Merriam is involved in a fight in port and knocked unconscious. One of his former shipmates (unaware that he was dismissed from the Altair) finds him and brings the unconscious man back aboard ship before the vessel departs. Merriam wakes up on the ship and fears that the insane Captain Stone may now attempt to kill him.
Merriam is scorned by the crew and given a cabin without a door lock. Merriam is confronted by Captain Stone when Merriam is caught trying to steal a gun from the ship's weapons locker. Stone dares Merriam to try to get the support of the crew, but Merriam is rebuffed in this effort. This changes when Radioman Wilson receives a radiogram asking if Merriam is on board. Captain Stone orders Wilson to lie, and reply that Merriam not aboard. The radioman tells Merriam that he now mistrusts the captain and will send a message to the company expressing his concerns about Stone's mental health. Wilson writes down his worries on a piece of paper and gives the paper to an illiterate crewman, Finn the Mute (Skelton Knaggs). The captain overhears Wilson's conversation with Merriam and kills Wilson.
Captain Stone now orders Merriam to send a radio message to the corporate office advising them that Wilson was washed overboard. The captain and Merriam fight, some crew members intervene, and the captain has the crew drug Merriam and tie the young man to the bunk in Merriam's quarters. Finn finally delivers Wilson' message to First Officer Bowns (Ben Bard), who can read. Bowns becomes deeply alarmed. The first officer talks to several other crew members, all of whom now begin questioning the captain's sanity.
Captain Stone overhears Bowns' conversation with the crew, and goes insane. He takes a knife and enters Merriam's cabin to kill the young officer, but Finn arrives to try to stop him. While the crew is up on deck singing, Finn and the captain engage in a desperate struggle in the dark—during which Finn kills the captain. After the captain's death, Merriam is reinstated and the ship returns to its home port of San Pedro.
Cat People. The film, which cost $141,659, brought in almost $4 million in its first two years and saved the studio from financial disaster. RKO wanted to move quickly on a sequel to build on the success of Cat People, but producer Val Lewton wished to make the fantasy-comedy story "The Amorous Ghost" instead. As Lewton and studio wrangled, Lewton commenced production on The Seventh Victim
, a horror-murder mystery film, and on May 12, 1943, RKO announced it was delaying production on the sequel The Curse of the Cat People
due to the unavailability of key performers. RKO production chief Charles Koerner did not want Lewton to be idle once filming on The Seventh Victim ended nor did he favor the idea of Lewton working on comedy, so Koerner suggested that Lewton direct a horror film set at sea, utilizing the studio's existing ship set, built for the 1938
film Pacific Liner). According to Robert Wise
, a longtime collaborator with Lewton, it was this set that gave Lewton the idea for the film. "He would find what we call a 'standing set,' and then tailor his script to the set, whatever it was. That's how he made The Ghost Ship. He walked onto a set and saw a tanker, then cooked up the idea for this ship with a murderous captain." One scholar has suggested that Lewton accepted the assignment in part because, as an amateur sailor himself, the ship captain's behavior mirrored Lewton's own views on how to manage a ship, but also because Lewton saw the plot as a way of criticizing his micro-managing superiors at RKO. The budget, as with all of Lewton's films, was set at $150,000.
At the time screenwriting began, Lewton claimed that the idea for the film was an original one attributable to himself. Leo Mittler did the treatment
and Donald Henderson Clarke
wrote the script, although Lewton significantly revised the screenplay and wrote many lines of dialogue himself.
Mark Robson was assigned to direct in June 1943. Robson was the RKO director "most in tune with[Lewton's] idea of psychological terror". Robson had just finished editing Orson Welles
' Journey Into Fear
, and there are distinct stylistic similarities between the two films. Robson and Lewton chose to use single-source lighting throughout the film in order to make the sets and performances more interesting, and sets were designed to utilize this type of lighting. The two men also agreed to continue Lewton's emphasis on unseen and implied terror. Cinematographer
Nicholas Musuraca, art directors Albert S. D'Agostino
and Walter E. Keller, and composer
Roy Webb
all regularly worked with Lewton, and did so on The Ghost Ship as well. Richard Dix was cast because he was already on contract with RKO to do several "quickie" pictures at a set fee per film, and doing The Ghost Ship would help fulfill his contract without much effort. Russell Wade had provided a disembodied voice in The Leopard Man
, and this was his first starring role in a Lewton production. His performance here led him to be cast in Lewton's highly-regarded 1945 production, The Body Snatcher
. Edith Barrett, Ben Bard, Dewey Robinson, and Charles Lung all had worked with Lewton before. Skelton Knaggs, Edmund Glover, and future film noir
star Lawrence Tierney, whom Lewton had seen modeling clothing in a Sears, Roebuck catalog, all made their motion picture debuts in the movie. Sir Lancelot, a well-known calypso
singer, who later influenced the career of Harry Belafonte
), had already appeared in singing roles in three prior films (including I Walked with a Zombie). He had already appeared in one Val Lewton production, but also his first non-singing role.
Production began on August 3, 1943. Many details about the performances, lighting, camera angles, action, and effects were worked out ahead of time in order to not only keep the film under budget but also help achieve suspense on such a low budget. Dr. Jared Criswell, former pastor of the Fifth Avenue Spiritualist Church of New York City, served as a technical consultant on the film regarding psychic phenomena. The picture's final fight scene between the Finn, Pollo, and the mad Captain was shot on a dimly lit set to heighten the suspense and keep the audience from guessing who the victor might be, similar to the way Jacques Tourneur
and Lewton had shot a similar scene in Cat People. A significant amount of blood is seen during this fight, by the standards of the time.
, 1943. The poster art was most likely painted by William Rose. The film did well at the box office until Lewton was sued for plagiarism in February 1944 by playwrights Samuel R. Golding and Norbert Faulkner, who claimed that the script was based on a play that was submitted to Lewton for a possible film. Because of the suit, The Ghost Ship was withdrawn from theatrical release. Lewton disputed the claim, but the court ruled against him. RKO paid the authors $25,000 in damages and attorney fees of $5,000, and lost all future booking residuals and the right to sell the film for airing on television. Elliot Lavine, a film historian, says that losing the lawsuit deeply disturbed Lewton, leaving him depressed for a significant period of time.
The film did not see release for nearly another 50 years due to the suit. The Ghost Ship did make it into a package of RKO films sold by "C & C Television Films" to local TV stations, but it was quickly withdrawn. It was not until the film's copyright was not renewed and it entered the public domain
in the 1990s, that it began to be available again.
of the New York Times enjoyed the film, calling it "... a nice little package of morbidity, all wrapped around in gloom."
The script has come in for significant praise, with Captain Stone being compared to Captain Queeg
in The Caine Mutiny
, Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick
, and Captain Wolf Larsen in The Sea-Wolf
. Other critics have pointed out that Stone and Merriam seem to have a father-son relationship, but that the perverseness of the script is that the father-figure becomes so enraged at his "son's" failings that he seeks to murder him.
Modern film critics have also praised the picture's acting, cinematography, and lighting, as well as its ability to scare. Actor Richard Dix is almost uniformly praised for bringing a depth of character, moodiness, and pathos to the role of Captain Stone. The film's direction, cinematography and lighting, too, display a depth of artistry not usually seen in cinema. Cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca won high praise for his chiaroscuro
lighting design. Film historian Edmund Bansak has written one scene in particular which is highly effective:
The set design, too, has been praised for being "suitably claustrophobic." Robson's direction has earned kudos for heightening the suspense by leaving certain actions and motives vague. In the scene in which Seaman Parker (Lawrence Tierney) dies, crushed by the anchor chain, Robson left it unclear whether Captain Stone committed murder by trapping Parker in the anchor chain locker or whether he merely shut the door. The vagueness leaves the audience unsure whether to believe Merriam's accusations against the Captain, and builds an atmosphere of paranoia and doubt which is critical to the picture's success. Contemporary critic Gary Giddins
has pointed out that the film incorporates classic Lewton scare tactics but in new ways. "His trademark scare tactic, a high point in practically all of his films, is a long, dark, nightmarish walk, where every sound is magnified and every object threatening. In The Ghost Ship, that "walk" is transferred to the cabin of the victimized third officer ..." Others have pointed out another Lewton device, the gradual stalking of a main character by a murderer, as another deft touch in the film.
Modern critics have also pointed out that the film, unlike so many motion pictures of the 1940s, has an almost exclusively male cast and avoids the trope
of a man "redeemed by the love of a good woman." The picture is "entirely concerned with male conflict", one critic noted, and at the end of the film a woman appears only in shadow and fog "as the possibility of salvation" rather than bringing emotional closure. Other film critics have made sustained arguments that the film is a lengthy if coded study of repressed homosexuality, similar to that in Herman Melville
's novel, Billy Budd
. Indeed, the focus on men and men's problems has led one modern critic to declare the film "one of the most homoerotic films Hollywood ever made."
Contemporary film programmers seem to have a high opinion of the film as well. A 1993 Film Forum
series, "Val Lewton: Horror Most Noir", screened The Ghost Ship 42 times, while I Walked With A Zombie screened only 10 times and Cat People a mere eight. Film director Alison Maclean
chose The Ghost Ship for a retrospective of classic RKO films, arguing that the film was "genuinely eccentric" and a cinematic revelation. When The Ghost Ship was shown on French cable television in the late 1990s, it was introduced as a prime example of Val Lewton's genius at presenting "unseen horror."
Black-and-white
Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...
horror
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
and crime film
Crime film
Crime films are films which focus on the lives of criminals. The stylistic approach to a crime film varies from realistic portrayals of real-life criminal figures, to the far-fetched evil doings of imaginary arch-villains. Criminal acts are almost always glorified in these movies.- Plays and films...
(with mystery film
Mystery film
Mystery film is a sub-genre of the more general category of crime film and at times the thriller genre. It focuses on the efforts of the detective, private investigator or amateur sleuth to solve the mysterious circumstances of a crime by means of clues, investigation, and clever deduction.The...
overtones) starring Richard Dix
Richard Dix
Richard Dix was an American motion picture actor who achieved popularity in both silent and sound film. His standard on-screen image was that of the rugged and stalwart hero.-Early life:...
, Russell Wade, and Skelton Knaggs. The film is about a young merchant marine
Merchant Navy
The Merchant Navy is the maritime register of the United Kingdom, and describes the seagoing commercial interests of UK-registered ships and their crews. Merchant Navy vessels fly the Red Ensign and are regulated by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency...
officer who begins to suspect that his ship's captain is mentally unbalanced and endangering the lives of the ship's crew. The ship's crew, however, believes the vessel to be haunted and curse
Curse
A curse is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to some other entity—one or more persons, a place, or an object...
d. Several mysterious deaths occur. After the young officer files a negative report with the corporation which owns the ship, the captain fires him. But a shipmate, believing the officer to be AWOL
Desertion
In military terminology, desertion is the abandonment of a "duty" or post without permission and is done with the intention of not returning...
, kidnaps the young man and returns him to the vessel. The captain becomes enraged, and attempts to murder the young officer. The film was directed by Mark Robson
Mark Robson
Mark Robson was a Canadian-born film editor, film director and producer in Hollywood.-Career:Born in Montreal, Quebec, he moved to the United States at a young age. He studied at the University of California, Los Angeles then found work in the prop department at 20th Century Fox studios...
and produced by Val Lewton
Val Lewton
Val Lewton was an American film producer and screenwriter, best known for a string of low-budget horror films he produced for RKO Pictures in the 1940s.-Early life:...
for RKO Radio Pictures
RKO Pictures
RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P...
.
Plot
Tom Merriam (Russell Wade), a young merchant marine officer, joins the crew of the ship Altair. At first, all seems well and Merriam bonds with the captain, Will Stone (Richard Dix). However, as the cruise continues, several crewmen die mysteriously. Some members of the crew believe the ship is haunted by the ghosts of its dead, and others that it is cursed. But Merriam believes that Captain Stone, who is obsessed with authority, is responsible. When they dock at the fictional Caribbean island of "San Sebastian" (which had appeared in RKO's I Walked with a ZombieI Walked with a Zombie
I Walked with a Zombie is a 1943 horror film directed by Jacques Tourneur. It was the second horror film from producer Val Lewton for RKO Pictures; the first was the very successful Cat People, also directed by Tourneur...
—another Lewton production—and later in RKO's Zombies on Broadway
Zombies on Broadway
Zombies on Broadway is an American Comedy-horror film released in 1945.-Plot summary:The duo of Jerry Miles and Mike Strager are employed as Broadway press agents. Miles and Strager's latest idea is to hire a genuine zombie for the opening of a new nightclub...
), Merriam attempts to expose the Captain's madness at a board of inquiry. He is helped by the local company agent, but Merriam is discredited and subsequently dismissed from service.
After the inquiry, the captain admits to a female friend that he fears he is losing his mind. The perplexed friend dismisses the discussion. Soon after, Merriam is involved in a fight in port and knocked unconscious. One of his former shipmates (unaware that he was dismissed from the Altair) finds him and brings the unconscious man back aboard ship before the vessel departs. Merriam wakes up on the ship and fears that the insane Captain Stone may now attempt to kill him.
Merriam is scorned by the crew and given a cabin without a door lock. Merriam is confronted by Captain Stone when Merriam is caught trying to steal a gun from the ship's weapons locker. Stone dares Merriam to try to get the support of the crew, but Merriam is rebuffed in this effort. This changes when Radioman Wilson receives a radiogram asking if Merriam is on board. Captain Stone orders Wilson to lie, and reply that Merriam not aboard. The radioman tells Merriam that he now mistrusts the captain and will send a message to the company expressing his concerns about Stone's mental health. Wilson writes down his worries on a piece of paper and gives the paper to an illiterate crewman, Finn the Mute (Skelton Knaggs). The captain overhears Wilson's conversation with Merriam and kills Wilson.
Captain Stone now orders Merriam to send a radio message to the corporate office advising them that Wilson was washed overboard. The captain and Merriam fight, some crew members intervene, and the captain has the crew drug Merriam and tie the young man to the bunk in Merriam's quarters. Finn finally delivers Wilson' message to First Officer Bowns (Ben Bard), who can read. Bowns becomes deeply alarmed. The first officer talks to several other crew members, all of whom now begin questioning the captain's sanity.
Captain Stone overhears Bowns' conversation with the crew, and goes insane. He takes a knife and enters Merriam's cabin to kill the young officer, but Finn arrives to try to stop him. While the crew is up on deck singing, Finn and the captain engage in a desperate struggle in the dark—during which Finn kills the captain. After the captain's death, Merriam is reinstated and the ship returns to its home port of San Pedro.
Cast
- Richard DixRichard DixRichard Dix was an American motion picture actor who achieved popularity in both silent and sound film. His standard on-screen image was that of the rugged and stalwart hero.-Early life:...
as Captain Will Stone - Russell Wade as Tom Merriam, 3rd Officer
- Edith BarrettEdith BarrettEdith Barrett was an American film actress.-Biography:Edith Barrett was a granddaughter of 19th-century American actor Lawrence Barrett. She entered the entertainment industry at age 16 in a staging of Walter Hampden's production of Cyrano de Bergerac. At 19 in 1926 she appeared with Hampden in...
as Ellen Roberts - Ben BardBen BardBen Bard was a movie actor, stage actor, and acting teacher. With comedian Jack Pearl, Bard worked in a comedy duo in vaudeville...
as First Officer Bowns - Edmund Glover as Jacob "Sparks" Winslow, radioman
- Alec Craig as the Blind Beggar (uncredited)
- Boyd Davis as Charles Roberts, Dunhan Line Agent (uncredited)
- Skelton Knaggs as Finn the Mute (uncredited)
- Sir LancelotSir Lancelot (singer)Lancelot Victor Edward Pinard was a calypso singer and actor who used the name Sir Lancelot. Sir Lancelot played a major role in popularizing calypso in North America, and Harry Belafonte has acknowledged him as an inspiration and major influence.-Early life:Pinard was born in Cumuto, Trinidad...
as Billy Radd (uncredited) - Charles Lung as Long Jim (uncredited)
- Dewey Robinson as Boats (uncredited)
- Lawrence TierneyLawrence TierneyLawrence Tierney was an American actor, known for his many screen portrayals of mobsters and hardened criminals, which mirrored his own frequent brushes with the law....
as Seaman Louie Parker (uncredited)
Production
RKO had scored a major financial success with 1942's1942 in film
The year 1942 in film involved some significant events, in particular the release of a film consistently rated as one of the greatest of all time, Casablanca.-Events:...
Cat People. The film, which cost $141,659, brought in almost $4 million in its first two years and saved the studio from financial disaster. RKO wanted to move quickly on a sequel to build on the success of Cat People, but producer Val Lewton wished to make the fantasy-comedy story "The Amorous Ghost" instead. As Lewton and studio wrangled, Lewton commenced production on The Seventh Victim
The Seventh Victim
The Seventh Victim is a 1943 horror and film noir starring Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Isabel Jewell, Kim Hunter , and Hugh Beaumont, directed by Mark Robson, and produced by Val Lewton for RKO Radio Pictures...
, a horror-murder mystery film, and on May 12, 1943, RKO announced it was delaying production on the sequel The Curse of the Cat People
The Curse of the Cat People
The Curse of the Cat People is a 1944 film directed by Gunther von Fritsch and Robert Wise, and produced by Val Lewton. This film, which was then-film editor Robert Wise's first directing credit, is the sequel to Cat People and has many of the same characters...
due to the unavailability of key performers. RKO production chief Charles Koerner did not want Lewton to be idle once filming on The Seventh Victim ended nor did he favor the idea of Lewton working on comedy, so Koerner suggested that Lewton direct a horror film set at sea, utilizing the studio's existing ship set, built for the 1938
1938 in film
The year 1938 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*January — MGM announces that Judy Garland would be cast in the role of "Dorothy" in the upcoming Wizard of Oz motion picture. Ray Bolger is cast as the "Tinman" and Buddy Ebsen is cast as the "Scarecrow". At Bolger's insistence,...
film Pacific Liner). According to Robert Wise
Robert Wise
Robert Earl Wise was an American sound effects editor, film editor, film producer and director...
, a longtime collaborator with Lewton, it was this set that gave Lewton the idea for the film. "He would find what we call a 'standing set,' and then tailor his script to the set, whatever it was. That's how he made The Ghost Ship. He walked onto a set and saw a tanker, then cooked up the idea for this ship with a murderous captain." One scholar has suggested that Lewton accepted the assignment in part because, as an amateur sailor himself, the ship captain's behavior mirrored Lewton's own views on how to manage a ship, but also because Lewton saw the plot as a way of criticizing his micro-managing superiors at RKO. The budget, as with all of Lewton's films, was set at $150,000.
At the time screenwriting began, Lewton claimed that the idea for the film was an original one attributable to himself. Leo Mittler did the treatment
Film treatment
A film treatment is a piece of prose, typically the step between scene cards and the first draft of a screenplay for a motion picture, television program, or radio play. It is generally longer and more detailed than an outline , and it may include details of directorial style that an outline omits...
and Donald Henderson Clarke
Donald Henderson Clarke
Donald Henderson Clarke was an American writer and journalist, known for his romantic novels, mystery fiction, and screenplays. Clarke was born on August 24, 1887 in South Hadley, Massachusetts, and died March 27, 1958 in Delray Beach, Florida Many of his screenplays were directed by John...
wrote the script, although Lewton significantly revised the screenplay and wrote many lines of dialogue himself.
Mark Robson was assigned to direct in June 1943. Robson was the RKO director "most in tune with
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
' Journey Into Fear
Journey into Fear (1943 film)
Journey into Fear is an American spy film based on the Eric Ambler novel of the same name. The 1943 film broadly follows the plot of the book, but the protagonist was changed to an American engineer....
, and there are distinct stylistic similarities between the two films. Robson and Lewton chose to use single-source lighting throughout the film in order to make the sets and performances more interesting, and sets were designed to utilize this type of lighting. The two men also agreed to continue Lewton's emphasis on unseen and implied terror. Cinematographer
Cinematographer
A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...
Nicholas Musuraca, art directors Albert S. D'Agostino
Albert S. D'Agostino
Albert S. D'Agostino was an American art director. He was nominated for five Academy Awards in the category Best Art Direction...
and Walter E. Keller, and composer
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
Roy Webb
Roy Webb
Roy Webb was a film music composer.Webb has hundreds of composing credits to his name, mainly with RKO Pictures, and while most of the movies he scored were fairly light in content, he is today best known for his dark horror and film noir scores...
all regularly worked with Lewton, and did so on The Ghost Ship as well. Richard Dix was cast because he was already on contract with RKO to do several "quickie" pictures at a set fee per film, and doing The Ghost Ship would help fulfill his contract without much effort. Russell Wade had provided a disembodied voice in The Leopard Man
The Leopard Man
The Leopard Man is a horror movie directed by Jacques Tourneur based on the book Black Alibi by Cornell Woolrich. It is one of the first American films to attempt an even remotely realistic portrayal of a serial killer .-Plot summary:The story, set in New Mexico, begins as Jerry Manning hires a...
, and this was his first starring role in a Lewton production. His performance here led him to be cast in Lewton's highly-regarded 1945 production, The Body Snatcher
The Body Snatcher (film)
The Body Snatcher is a 1945 horror film directed by Robert Wise based on the short story The Body Snatcher by Robert Louis Stevenson. The film's producer Val Lewton helped adapt the story for the screen, writing under the pen name of "Carlos Keith". The film was marketed with the tagline The...
. Edith Barrett, Ben Bard, Dewey Robinson, and Charles Lung all had worked with Lewton before. Skelton Knaggs, Edmund Glover, and future film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
star Lawrence Tierney, whom Lewton had seen modeling clothing in a Sears, Roebuck catalog, all made their motion picture debuts in the movie. Sir Lancelot, a well-known calypso
Calypso music
Calypso is a style of Afro-Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago from African and European roots. The roots of the genre lay in the arrival of enslaved Africans, who, not being allowed to speak with each other, communicated through song...
singer, who later influenced the career of Harry Belafonte
Harry Belafonte
Harold George "Harry" Belafonte, Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, actor and social activist. He was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s...
), had already appeared in singing roles in three prior films (including I Walked with a Zombie). He had already appeared in one Val Lewton production, but also his first non-singing role.
Production began on August 3, 1943. Many details about the performances, lighting, camera angles, action, and effects were worked out ahead of time in order to not only keep the film under budget but also help achieve suspense on such a low budget. Dr. Jared Criswell, former pastor of the Fifth Avenue Spiritualist Church of New York City, served as a technical consultant on the film regarding psychic phenomena. The picture's final fight scene between the Finn, Pollo, and the mad Captain was shot on a dimly lit set to heighten the suspense and keep the audience from guessing who the victor might be, similar to the way Jacques Tourneur
Jacques Tourneur
Jacques Tourneur was a French-American film director.-Life:Born in Paris, France, he was the son of film director Maurice Tourneur. At age 10, Jacques moved to the United States with his father. He started a career in cinema while still attending high school as an extra and later as a script clerk...
and Lewton had shot a similar scene in Cat People. A significant amount of blood is seen during this fight, by the standards of the time.
Release and lawsuit
The film was released in theaters on Christmas EveChristmas Eve
Christmas Eve refers to the evening or entire day preceding Christmas Day, a widely celebrated festival commemorating the birth of Jesus of Nazareth that takes place on December 25...
, 1943. The poster art was most likely painted by William Rose. The film did well at the box office until Lewton was sued for plagiarism in February 1944 by playwrights Samuel R. Golding and Norbert Faulkner, who claimed that the script was based on a play that was submitted to Lewton for a possible film. Because of the suit, The Ghost Ship was withdrawn from theatrical release. Lewton disputed the claim, but the court ruled against him. RKO paid the authors $25,000 in damages and attorney fees of $5,000, and lost all future booking residuals and the right to sell the film for airing on television. Elliot Lavine, a film historian, says that losing the lawsuit deeply disturbed Lewton, leaving him depressed for a significant period of time.
The film did not see release for nearly another 50 years due to the suit. The Ghost Ship did make it into a package of RKO films sold by "C & C Television Films" to local TV stations, but it was quickly withdrawn. It was not until the film's copyright was not renewed and it entered the public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
in the 1990s, that it began to be available again.
Reception
At the time of its initial release, most reviews were indifferent, but Bosley CrowtherBosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...
of the New York Times enjoyed the film, calling it "... a nice little package of morbidity, all wrapped around in gloom."
The script has come in for significant praise, with Captain Stone being compared to Captain 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...
in 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...
, Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, was written by American author Herman Melville and first published in 1851. It is considered by some to be a Great American Novel and a treasure of world literature. The story tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod,...
, and Captain Wolf Larsen in The Sea-Wolf
The Sea-Wolf
The Sea-Wolf is a 1904 psychological adventure novel by American novelist Jack London about a literary critic, survivor of an ocean collision who comes under the dominance of Wolf Larsen, the powerful and amoral sea captain who rescues him...
. Other critics have pointed out that Stone and Merriam seem to have a father-son relationship, but that the perverseness of the script is that the father-figure becomes so enraged at his "son's" failings that he seeks to murder him.
Modern film critics have also praised the picture's acting, cinematography, and lighting, as well as its ability to scare. Actor Richard Dix is almost uniformly praised for bringing a depth of character, moodiness, and pathos to the role of Captain Stone. The film's direction, cinematography and lighting, too, display a depth of artistry not usually seen in cinema. Cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca won high praise for his chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro in art is "an Italian term which literally means 'light-dark'. In paintings the description refers to clear tonal contrasts which are often used to suggest the volume and modelling of the subjects depicted"....
lighting design. Film historian Edmund Bansak has written one scene in particular which is highly effective:
- An excellent set-piece early in the film showcases Robson's underrated directorial skill. Robson creates a dynamic sense of menace from a physical object: a massive giant hook hanging from upon an enormous chain, pendulumlike, inches above the deck. ...
[The] hook remains unattended and unsecured. ... In a tightly directed, genuinely exciting scene, the monstrous hook sways back and forth in a direct path toward the camera, making one wonder how cinematographer, Nicholas Musuraca, kept his camera (and head) intact during the shooting. ... The lighting is also used to great advantage, the shadows and fog accenting the terror. Half the time the swinging hook is so hidden in the darkness that aside from the creak of its sway, there is no telling which direction it will take.
The set design, too, has been praised for being "suitably claustrophobic." Robson's direction has earned kudos for heightening the suspense by leaving certain actions and motives vague. In the scene in which Seaman Parker (Lawrence Tierney) dies, crushed by the anchor chain, Robson left it unclear whether Captain Stone committed murder by trapping Parker in the anchor chain locker or whether he merely shut the door. The vagueness leaves the audience unsure whether to believe Merriam's accusations against the Captain, and builds an atmosphere of paranoia and doubt which is critical to the picture's success. Contemporary critic Gary Giddins
Gary Giddins
Gary Giddins is an American jazz critic, author, and director, best known for his longtime work with The Village Voice. Born in Brooklyn, and raised on Long Island, Giddins graduated from Grinnell College, Iowa, in 1970...
has pointed out that the film incorporates classic Lewton scare tactics but in new ways. "His trademark scare tactic, a high point in practically all of his films, is a long, dark, nightmarish walk, where every sound is magnified and every object threatening. In The Ghost Ship, that "walk" is transferred to the cabin of the victimized third officer ..." Others have pointed out another Lewton device, the gradual stalking of a main character by a murderer, as another deft touch in the film.
Modern critics have also pointed out that the film, unlike so many motion pictures of the 1940s, has an almost exclusively male cast and avoids the trope
Trope (literature)
A literary trope is the usage of figurative language in literature, or a figure of speech in which words are used in a sense different from their literal meaning...
of a man "redeemed by the love of a good woman." The picture is "entirely concerned with male conflict", one critic noted, and at the end of the film a woman appears only in shadow and fog "as the possibility of salvation" rather than bringing emotional closure. Other film critics have made sustained arguments that the film is a lengthy if coded study of repressed homosexuality, similar to that in Herman Melville
Herman Melville
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
's novel, Billy Budd
Billy Budd
Billy Budd is a short novel by Herman Melville.Billy Budd can also refer to:*Billy Budd , a 1962 film produced, directed, and co-written by Peter Ustinov, based on Melville's novel...
. Indeed, the focus on men and men's problems has led one modern critic to declare the film "one of the most homoerotic films Hollywood ever made."
Contemporary film programmers seem to have a high opinion of the film as well. A 1993 Film Forum
Film Forum
Film Forum is a nonprofit movie theater located at 209 West Houston Street in New York City. It began in 1970 as an alternative screening space for independent films, with 50 folding chairs, one projector and a US$19,000 annual budget. Karen Cooper became director in 1972 and under her leadership,...
series, "Val Lewton: Horror Most Noir", screened The Ghost Ship 42 times, while I Walked With A Zombie screened only 10 times and Cat People a mere eight. Film director Alison Maclean
Alison Maclean
Alison Maclean is a Canadian film director of music videos, short films, television , commercials and feature films...
chose The Ghost Ship for a retrospective of classic RKO films, arguing that the film was "genuinely eccentric" and a cinematic revelation. When The Ghost Ship was shown on French cable television in the late 1990s, it was introduced as a prime example of Val Lewton's genius at presenting "unseen horror."