Better known today as a two-time winner of the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award, Peter Ustinov also produced, directed and/or wrote a handful of other films, in which he usually appeared as an actor as well. Bringing this classic Herman Melville seafaring novel about good vs. evil to the big screen was his last production; Ustinov directed it, played one of the main characters, and (along with DeWitt Bodeen) adapted the Louis O. Coxe-Robert H. Chapman play for the screen.
Newcomer Terence Stamp (in only his second film, the first to be released in the United States) played the title role, Melville's stammering protagonist who's impressed into wartime duty as a sailor from a merchant ship (Rights of Man) by an officer from the English man-of-war Avenger in 1797. Stamp would earn his only recognition from the Academy with a Supporting Actor Oscar nomination of his own.
Captain Edwin Fairfax Vere (Ustinov) and his officers, which include 1st Lieutenant Philip Seymour (Paul Rogers), 2nd Lieutenant Julian Ratcliffe (John Neville), and Gunnery Officer Steven Wyatt (David MacCallum), are wary of these impressed into service crewmen because of rampant rumors and incidents of mutiny aboard other British Navy ships, especially since their own Master-at-arms, John Claggart (Robert Ryan), is a particularly sadistic and cruel individual who seems to enjoy exercising his authority to have men flogged for no apparent reason.
This adventure drama not only includes a flogging scene ostensibly to instill obedience and discipline of servitude among the crewman who must watch it, but most of the other requisite military ship at sea movie sequences such as a burial at sea, men shown climbing the ship's masts to unfurl its sails, etc.. What's unique about this one, besides the central conflict between both extremes - the unbelievably virtuous Budd and the overly malevolent Claggart - is its final third:
Anyone who has seen 12 Angry Men (1957) knows that, as Juror #8, Henry Fonda convinces a hung jury, one by one, that it's an innocent man that's about to be convicted; much of the last 30 minutes of this drama plays out in exactly the opposite way. After Budd is so enraged by Claggart's false testimony - about the seaman's supposed involvement in a mutiny plot - that (unable to find his tongue) he lashes out and kills the Master d'Arms, Captain Vere convenes a military court (comprised of the aforementioned officers) to try the case.
When the understanding officers are ready to acquit Billy, Vere convinces them that the law is more important than justice in this case, that it's their duty to find him guilty of killing of a superior officer, that no matter what the extenuating circumstances (e.g. Claggart's bearing false witness or other justifications) Billy must hang. Like the other drama, it's this deliberation that is the crux of the film.
Others who appear in the film include Melvyn Douglas, as a wise old sailmaker dubbed Dansker (because he's Dutch), Ronald Lewis as Jenkins, a maintopman whose death begins the central conflict, and Lee Montague as the aptly named Squeak, Claggart's informer- assistant.
Newcomer Terence Stamp (in only his second film, the first to be released in the United States) played the title role, Melville's stammering protagonist who's impressed into wartime duty as a sailor from a merchant ship (Rights of Man) by an officer from the English man-of-war Avenger in 1797. Stamp would earn his only recognition from the Academy with a Supporting Actor Oscar nomination of his own.
Captain Edwin Fairfax Vere (Ustinov) and his officers, which include 1st Lieutenant Philip Seymour (Paul Rogers), 2nd Lieutenant Julian Ratcliffe (John Neville), and Gunnery Officer Steven Wyatt (David MacCallum), are wary of these impressed into service crewmen because of rampant rumors and incidents of mutiny aboard other British Navy ships, especially since their own Master-at-arms, John Claggart (Robert Ryan), is a particularly sadistic and cruel individual who seems to enjoy exercising his authority to have men flogged for no apparent reason.
This adventure drama not only includes a flogging scene ostensibly to instill obedience and discipline of servitude among the crewman who must watch it, but most of the other requisite military ship at sea movie sequences such as a burial at sea, men shown climbing the ship's masts to unfurl its sails, etc.. What's unique about this one, besides the central conflict between both extremes - the unbelievably virtuous Budd and the overly malevolent Claggart - is its final third:
Anyone who has seen 12 Angry Men (1957) knows that, as Juror #8, Henry Fonda convinces a hung jury, one by one, that it's an innocent man that's about to be convicted; much of the last 30 minutes of this drama plays out in exactly the opposite way. After Budd is so enraged by Claggart's false testimony - about the seaman's supposed involvement in a mutiny plot - that (unable to find his tongue) he lashes out and kills the Master d'Arms, Captain Vere convenes a military court (comprised of the aforementioned officers) to try the case.
When the understanding officers are ready to acquit Billy, Vere convinces them that the law is more important than justice in this case, that it's their duty to find him guilty of killing of a superior officer, that no matter what the extenuating circumstances (e.g. Claggart's bearing false witness or other justifications) Billy must hang. Like the other drama, it's this deliberation that is the crux of the film.
Others who appear in the film include Melvyn Douglas, as a wise old sailmaker dubbed Dansker (because he's Dutch), Ronald Lewis as Jenkins, a maintopman whose death begins the central conflict, and Lee Montague as the aptly named Squeak, Claggart's informer- assistant.