Lots of excitement in this reunion of Broderick Crawford and John Ireland from the previous year's Oscar winning Best Picture. Crawford and Ireland are old buddies who are reunited, and get into all sorts of windy cold water when Ireland, lusting over Crawford's fiancée Ellen Drew, sets captain Crawford's tanker out to see while Crawford is passed out, with Drew aboard. The antagonism between Crawford and Ireland grows when Drew, previously furious with Ireland, begins to soften to him by his caring for the injured Robert Espinoza, the teen Mexican cabin boy. Espinoza is initially funny and endearing, but becomes the heart and soul of the story as his heroic actions lead to near tragedy. A good actor with a large handful of credits, he steals the audience's heart and every scene he's in. Edgar "Uncle Joe" Buchanan isn't moving kind of slow as another crew member, tough and irascible, yet basically decent.
Not on the A scale of "All the King's Men" but well done nine the less with great photography and special effects, it's only deficiency is a sometimes implausible plot that comes together like good weather after a stormy night at sea. The three leads are very good, and Crawford toned down the big bully image he had from his Oscar winning role and the same year's "Born Yesterday". Drew is lovely but tough, able to survive through her own courage and heart in a man's world, certainly not in the way aboard this rusty decaying boat. This plot has been done over and over, but it's fortunately quite different from the often redone Warner Brothers script of "Tiger Shark" which became the subject of half a dozen other movies, most notably "Manpower". This keeps the audience interested with non-stop intrigue, and is a nice little obscure discovery worth spending a fady moving 80 minutes with.
Not on the A scale of "All the King's Men" but well done nine the less with great photography and special effects, it's only deficiency is a sometimes implausible plot that comes together like good weather after a stormy night at sea. The three leads are very good, and Crawford toned down the big bully image he had from his Oscar winning role and the same year's "Born Yesterday". Drew is lovely but tough, able to survive through her own courage and heart in a man's world, certainly not in the way aboard this rusty decaying boat. This plot has been done over and over, but it's fortunately quite different from the often redone Warner Brothers script of "Tiger Shark" which became the subject of half a dozen other movies, most notably "Manpower". This keeps the audience interested with non-stop intrigue, and is a nice little obscure discovery worth spending a fady moving 80 minutes with.