It’s a tradition for television stations to present a selection of war movies over the Memorial Day holiday and it is swiftly becoming a tradition for the studios to release a slew of war themed DVDs to celebrate the contribution of the nation’s veterans in time for the last Monday in May.
Special mention this year goes to Columbia who are releasing collector’s editions of two classics that had already been afforded a release on those gleaming silver discs.
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First up is “The Caine Mutiny” which was first released on DVD assist in unhurried 1998. That bare bones version was widely panned for its abominable transfer, which featured an overabundance of digital noise and was presented in basic stereo.
Those failings have been corrected for this most unique digitally remastered release. Here we are presented with a quite exceptional recount and soundtrack and a nice smattering of special features.
Based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning fresh by Herman Wouk the film (which itself was nominated for seven Academy Awards in 1954) details the tension between the captain of a World War II era minesweeper (played superbly by Humphrey Bogart) and his crew. Bogart’s character is overly paranoid and viewed by some as displaying cowardice in the face of battle.
Playing the portion of the executive officer, Lt. Steve Maryk is Van Johnson who, spurred on by third in content, the spineless Lt. Keefer (Fred MacMurray), finally takes control of the ship when the safety of the ship and crew are threatened. Queeg’s stubborn insistences to absorb the heading of the ship in a typhoon, flying in the face of well-behaved seamanship, forces Maryk to consume action and he, along with Ensign Keith, are charged with mutiny upon return to port.
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It is here that the movie truly shines. Reluctantly defending the two is the always-excellent Jose Ferrer, and the scene where he interrogates Queeg on the stand is gripping.
Complimenting the movie Columbia have added an involving scene specific audio commentary by Program Director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center Richard Pena and filmmaker and producer Ken Bowser. The two detail the difficulties the filmmakers initially faced when confronted with an initially uncooperative Department of he Navy, careers of the actors keen and the context of the film in relation to a political environment that saw Hollywood filmmakers blacklisted.
Apparently the Navy has never had a mutiny onboard one of its ships (a fact which leads to the placement of a disclaimer to the beginning of the portray) and they were none too gay with the fictitious chronicle. However, following a change in inform, they reversed their decision and offered the exercise of dockyards, ships, aircraft carrier and even valid sailors for the movie.
Both Pena and Bowser return for the two-part documentary on the making of the movie. Running for 18:48 and 16:16 respectively they are joined by Film Critic Bob Castle.
The three initiate by discussing the mood in Hollywood at the time. Apparently movie audiences declined rapid from 1946 to 1962 with the advent of television and greater foreign competition and so a nervous industry was looking for a “certain bet.” Producer Stanley Kramer had bought the film rights to “The Caine Mutiny” book before it became a bestseller for $60,000. The book was a major selling point that led to the producers being able to cast the movie with a strong ensemble. Castle mentions some of the un-credited roles to illustrate this and Bogart reportedly read the book and actively campaigned for the role of the captain.
Rounding out the special features are trailers for “Walking Tall: The Payback,” “Hard Luck” and “Edison Force.” None fill any thematic connection with the main feature.
Recommended
THE CAINE MUTINY remains one of the finest films ever made about the Navy. It was also one the U.S. Navy had a complex relationship with. On the one hand, the navy provided noteworthy access to naval vessels. Notable scenes were shot on at least three: the destroyer-mine sweeper feeble to narrate the Caine, a light cruiser at the very destroy, and the U.S.S. Kearsarge, which represented Halsey’s flag ship the U.S.S. Enterprise, though he later moved to the U.S.S. Missouri. Despite this powerful cooperation, the Navy very nearly withheld its approval for the film. It was insecure that the public might imagine that the tale represented steady events or that it might be imagined that there had been a mutiny aboard some ship. Only after the filmmakers agree to originate the film with a historical disclaimer did they approve.
More than anything, despite the presence of ships, the film is mainly a showcase for mountainous acting. The quality of the cast simply can’t be exaggerated. There are a host of stellar performances, and they even have such future stars as Lee Marvin in throwaway parts. Humphrey Bogart absolutely dominates the cover with one of the finest performances of his career. Most of the fan and critic polls I have seen over the years of the greatest movie stars of all time invariably position Bogart in the number one state, and when you glimpse him in this role, and then realize that he has 7 or 8 roles unprejudiced as sizable, it is easy to explore why. He is such a forceful presence that one would imagine that he wouldn’t have been suited of a variety of roles, yet you inequity this film with THE MALTESE FALCON and THE AFRICAN QUEEN, and you realize that he had a capacity to play a surprisingly wide range of roles. Lt. Commander Queeg lacks almost all of the qualities of Rick in CASABLANCA, and possesses a host of lamentable ones as well. The scene in which Queeg cowardly has the U.S.S. Caine hasty outrun the landing crafts it is assigned to protect and then retreat to safety as snappy as possible is made all the worse by the courage his characters in other films point to. Queeg’s final crack up on the peep stand at Lt. Maryk’s court martial is justifiably celebrated, and is among the ample scenes in cinema. It is now impossible for any character in any film to play with a pair of steel balls and not reflect of Bogart.
The rest of the cast is hardly shamed by Bogart. Van Johnson, as the sincere, enormously gracious, conscientious Lt. Maryk is friendly. (This is, by the map, the only film in which the accomplish up department didn’t shroud the quite tall scars on his forehead that he suffered over a decade earlier in a serious car smash, which resulted in a steel plate being placed in his forehead.) Robert Francis, who had a promising career cleave short at the age of 25 in a plane atomize he suffered a year after this film, is solid as the young, idealistic Ensign Keith (though the parallels between his hesitancy to stand up to his mother and marry the woman he loves and his hesitancy to stand up to his commanders isn’t developed as powerful as it is implied) holds his beget against stiff competition. Fred MacMurray, who spent his entire career bouncing between utterly lovable and absolutely reprehensible characters, here takes the latter course as the complex, spineless Lt. Keefer. His character adds a luscious degree of ambiguity to the film. Jerry Paris, who would later play Assume and Laura Petrie’s friend in THE DICK VAN DYKE Note, is safe as the ship’s other junior ensign. Tom Tully managed an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor in his stellar performance as Lt. Commander DeVriess, the first commander of the Caine. Jose Ferrer (who is, by the draw, George Clooney’s uncle by marriage), whose camouflage roles never seemed to advance up to the level of his talent, is outstanding in his dinky but memorable role as the mutineers’ defense attorney.
On a minor sign, I very noteworthy enjoyed the very current residence scene in Yosemite National Park. Although we consume dwelling shots for granted today, Hollywood in the thirties, forties, and fifties was only very slowly willing to undertake residence shots. It is hard today to realize how radical it was for directors like John Huston (who shot parts of THE Esteem OF SIERRA MADRE in Mexico and THE AFRICAN QUEEN in Africa) or John Ford (who shot extensively in Arizona for his Westerns and in Ireland for THE Level-headed MAN) to shoot on spot. The general preference was to manufacture sets on Hollywood backlots. It is so modern to behold situation shots that no sound film was shot on residence in Chicago (many films were made at the aged Essanay Studios in Chicago in the teens and twenties) until the qualified Jimmy Stewart CALL NORTHSIDE 777. The scenes in this one, therefore, status in Yosemite are handsome recent.
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