Michael's Movie Grade:B+
Review: A fascinating film with an incredible performance by Bogey.
The film starts out as nothing special, but once it gets going it is downright fantastic. The character of Commander Queeg is fascinatingly complex, and truly holds the audiences, of course something helped out by being portrayed by Humphrey Bogart. Director Edward Dmytryk, writers Stanley Roberts and Michael Blankfort and actor Humphrey Bogart all delight in reveling to us the unstable psyche of this character from Herman Wouk's famous novel, and their fascination with this character really shows. This is just a fantastic character study.
Queeg isn't the only great character in this film Lt. Keefer is also a very enjoyably character, with a great performance by Fred McMurray, who shows again that he can play in anything from a gritty film-noir to goofy Disney comedies to a sitcom. Also fantastic is Lt. Maryk played by Van Johnson in a great performance.
However this film is not a perfect film, and is bogged down by needless and bland romantic scenes. The romance simply is not that interesting, and very underdeveloped. The film comes to a halt whenever these scenes come on, and they are probably a good time to get a snack before you miss something really good.
Max Steiner, one of the all time best film composers, delivers another great score that enhances the movie.
Overall this is a fantastic movie, and even though it may start off slow and have a few boring scenes, the good stuff in the film is absolutely fantastic.
-Michael J. Ruhland
