Several other incidents occur on board which cause Lt. But Queeg refuses to take responsibility, instead trying to blame it all on inefficient manufacturing. Unfortunately during the dressing down Queeg lapses on his command and the ship cuts a towline. Things start out with a bang as Queeg observes a sailor with his shirt untucked and appoints Keith as a morale officer, with one of his specific duties to see that every sailor on board is in ship shape, “by the book” as Queeg says.ĭuring a training exercise however, Queeg finds one of the sailors not dressed appropriately and dresses down both the sailor and Keith for lack of discipline. The ship a minesweeper, but one that, to Keith’s shock, is run haphazardly by the commander, Captain De Vriess ( Tom Tully).Įventually De Vriess is relieved of his command and the Caine gets a new captain, Phillip Queeg (Humphrey Bogart). Keith has just graduated the Naval Academy and is assigned to the USS Caine. The real star of this movie is Ensign Willie Keith ( Robert Francis, who by the way only starred in four movies before his untimely death). The Navy originally was reluctant to lend it’s support to the film because as they claimed “there has never been a mutiny in the United States Navy.” Wouk, for his part was distraught over this and offered to return the advance money paid him for the book rights, but Stanley Kramer, the producer, and writers changed enough of the story that eventually they got the Navy’s help, going so far as to let the production use Navy personnel and ships for filming of the action sequences. In The Caine Mutiny, MacMurray plays what is essentially the real villain of the piece, despite Bogart’s bravo performance as an unhinged captain. The all-star cast of the film included Van Johnson, José Ferrer and Fred MacMurray.įred MacMurray’s career was mostly as good-natured comedic characters such as Steve Douglas in the long-running TV series My Three Sons and a host of Disney films, but I personally think his best work was when he deviated from that niche and played flawed characters (read: villains) in such movies as Double Indemnity. (See The Treasure of the Sierra Madre for one of the better examples of this type of character). Humphrey Bogart campaigned for the role of Captain Queeg, which was somewhat of a departure from his regular roles, although he had played characters verging on the point of madness before. But according to my research, it was optioned even before it became a hit with critics and the public. This would have put it on the radar for a film version at any rate. Herman Wouk (who is remarkably still with us as of this post at 103), was the author of a book that garnered a Pulitzer Prize: The Caine Mutiny.
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