Tuesday, May 10, 2011

The Caine Mutiny

The Caine Mutiny

Classic 1954 film starring the great Humphrey Bogart.  This is one of those films in which you are privvy to how close it was to the transition of actors and directors from the medium of stage to film.  There is a bit of over acting, emotion, gesturing, etc. and a style that is not seen in films today.  There is more subtlety in film today that would never make it on stage because that subtlety on a stage would never have made it past the first few rows of the theater.

Bogart is great as Queeg who portrays the captain of the USS Caine: a mine sweeper in WWII.  He starts to lose it and in a tense moment, his actions put the ship in such danger that he is relieved of command by his crew: mutiny.  The rest of the film is courtroom and he is found to be in the wrong. 

One trait of films of this era is that there is not the action, explosions and all seen today, so the movie moves slowly by today's standards.  In light of that, it is best seen on DVD and not TV where commercials wtih their inherent lengthening and interruptions would make this film too slow moving to be bearable.

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