A grim long voyage with an earnest script by the remarkable Abby Mann and a respectful Stanley Kramer at the helm. Assorted desperate characters makes the sailing a gripping one. When the extraordinary Simone Signoret, Oskar Werner and Vivien Leigh are on, we're there with them one hundred per cent. Simone Signoret's addicted Countess and Vivien Leigh's bitter and disillusioned middle age Southern woman touch and dominate the highest, most powerful moments. Their stories have an immediate resonance and their faces, wonderful, beautiful faces, carry a truth that is as pungent as it is undeniable. Painful yes, very painful but, as it happens with the best kind of drama, entertaining, compelling, cinematic. Jose Ferrer's German bore, George Segal and Elizabeth Ashley and even the wonderful Michael Dunn will make you sea sick at times but I will recommend it nonetheless just to admire and enjoy Vivien Leigh's Charleston or Simone Signoret looking at Oskar Werner with a mixture of love, lust, compassion and need. For collectors of imperfect gems.
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littlemartinarocena2 December 2007
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brogmiller27 April 2020Abby Mann, who also wrote 'Judgement at Nuremburg' for director Stanley Kramer, has here condensed the novel of Katherine Anne Porter to a little under two and a half hours but it still seems a wee bit on the long side. The weakest link is the on/off romance of the angst-ridden artist of George Segal and the insecure girlfriend of Elisabeth Ashley which becomes rather tiresome. The strongest link is the relationship between ship's doctor Schumann and La Condesa. Oskar Werner and Simone Signoret are simply stupendous and their chemistry is palpable. They are greatly aided by having beautifully written roles and the touching music of Ernest Gold. Werner received recognition for his performance from the New York Critic's Circle. At one point she asks him 'Are you happy?' His response 'Who is?' has a world of meaning.
Mention has to be made of Vivien Leigh who plays a lady 'entre deux ages' as the French diplomatically say. Kramer paid tribute to her courage in taking on the role despite her physical and mental problems. Needless to say her nuanced performance oozes class. She picked up a well-deserved 'L'Etoile de Cristal' before this award was renamed the César.
Among the uniformly excellent performances is that of Heinz Ruemann as Lowenthal, an incorrigible optimist who has chosen to go back to Germany in 1932! When asked about his fellow German Jews he asks: 'What are they going to do, kill us all?' Ruemann's presence in this film is fascinating for although he always asserted that he was a fervent anti-Nazi he certainly had a close association with Hitler and his circle. The fact that he was one of Germany's most popular actors and was married to actress Hertha Feile who was quarter Jewish no doubt enabled him to seemlessly continue his career after the war.
Despite its longeurs this is a piece that leaves a deep impression as we can all relate to the guilts and regrets of these characters. In response to Schumann's 'I haven't lived' the Captain asks 'Who has?'
Sorry to say the author disliked the finished product but in the world of film adaptations that is par for the course! -
About 1490 or so a German writer named Sebastian Brandt wrote an allegorical novel about the condition of mankind and types of men in their follies called DER NARR SHIFF (I believe that is the German title) which translates to "The Ship of Fools". At that time in Europe many humanists wrote such allegories, the most famous one being Erasmus' IN PRAISE OF FOLLY. Today Erasmus is still remembered, while Brandt is studied only by students of the German language and it's literature.
The title SHIP OF FOOLS was picked up by Katherine Anne Porter, who (for most of her literary career) was an excellent short story writer. At the tail end of that career she decided to tackle the larger target of a complete, complex novel. As one can see from the comments on this thread some people think she did superbly with her story and characterizations, while others think she flubbed it. I've never read the novel, but judging from the film version (and suspecting it is a watered down treatment, like most novels into films) it must be an above average work.
To me this is a film that actually stands out for individual moments by the cast. Michael Dunn ferociously lecturing Heinz Ruhlmann about the extreme anti-Semitism of the other passengers (not only the irritating neo-Nazi Jose Ferrer, but most of the other passengers) that has caused them (Dunn and Ruhlmann) to be banished to an isolated table for their meals. Ruhlmann, a kindly, nice man (who manages to make Ferrer's bigotry seem funny and stupid at one point) responds, "There are one million Jews in Germany. Are they going to kill us all?" The dialog is fairly sharp in these vignettes. Werner Klemperer, as a ship's officer, responding from signals from Vivien Leigh for some type of shipboard sexual encounter, discovering that Leigh is simply using him for a matter of trivial amusement. He tells her off in a fine little speech, which may have been the best delivered dialog of his career on film (and is years away from his Col. Wilhelm Klinck on HOGAN'S HEROES). Ferrer is half gregarious and half a bigoted swine, and totally untrustworthy. In the coming war unlike Herr Schindler, if Ferrer made a list it would be to turn Jews over to the authorities so he could get their possessions. His comment about how he is not anti-Semitic, he adores Arab people is almost as good as his spirited moment of pure entertainment when he sings a comic German song for the passengers. Even the minor actors on the screen have good moments. Witness the now forgotten Henry Calvin (a few years earlier he had been one of the "Laurel & Hardy" imitations in Walt Disney's BABES IN TOYLAND). Here he is one of the Cuban peasants transported by the ship to pre-Civil War Spain. His moment is when he tells off the racist Captain and his officers who have looked down on these steerage passengers, referring to the Captain as a pig. One can keep going on, especially with the sympathetic Oscar Werner and Simone Signoret, and with Dunn again, the only one of the passengers and crew who is intelligent.
For the point of the story is that this world of the 1930s is headed (as the reader knows) for disaster that will engulf everyone. The café society will not survive it. The Cuban immigrants will soon be killed by Republican or Fascists in Spain. The Captain and his crew will be drafted into Hitler's navy, and probably die in the Bismarck or some other ship. Marvin will be drafted, and even if he should survive the war he will find the segregation of his United States slowly eroded in the decades following the war. Ferrer will probably be starving in the ruins of Dresden or Berlin (if he is not killed in a bombing), wondering what happened to that prosperity the Nazis promised in a world without Jews. Every character in the story is facing the conclusion of the standards that gave them some degree of stability - some like Vivien Leigh and Simone Signoret are already going to pieces. In some ways, at the end, Werner and Dunn may be the only lucky ones. Werner is lucky because he will die before the war comes. Dunn...well since he is the clearest in terms of reality of all the characters, he will probably leave Europe before 1939, settle in the U.S. sitting out the war there, and only return afterwards to gaze at the ruins the others wrought. -
don_agu6 February 2005Vivien Leigh sits opposite redneck Lee Marvin in the ship's upper deck restaurant, Marvin confesses to Leigh he never new what a Jew was until he was 15, "You were too busy lynching blacks" is her replay. I thought to mention it just to give you a hint of the sort of cruise ship we're travelling on. We sail through a sea that goes from the sublime to the ridiculous. Abby Mann is a master at drawing characters with long shadows and Kramer a master at capturing them. Think "Judgement at Neuremberg" Here you'll feel sea sick sometimes but the trip is worth taking. I mean. Vivien Leigh and Lee Marvin in a sad comedy of errors. Simone Signoret as a drug addicted countess and Oskar Werner her kindly, tragic, doctor, pusher. Highly charged, beautifully written moments. The lower decks for the down trodden is full of extras. George Segal and Elizabeth Ashley try both decks and and a deck all their own with melodramatic regularity. Jose Ferrer and Heinz Rhumman have one of my favourite exchanges. Ferrer, the German military tells Rhumman, the German Jew, that he should admit that the Jews are great part of the German problem. Rhumman calmly agrees and ads "true, but not only the Jews, also men who smoke the pipe are great part of the German problem" "Why men who smoke the pipe?" Shouts Ferrer. To what Rhumman replies "Why the Jews?" Michael Dunn addresses us directly, asking us to find ourselves among the passengers. Okay.
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"Ship of Fools" it may be, but it is also a Ship of Stars: Oskar Werner, Vivien Leigh, Lee Marvin, Simone Signoret, Jose Ferrer, Elizabeth Ashley, George Segal, and Michael Dunn. Directed by Stanley Kramer, this 1965 film deals with a German ship heading to its port in Bremerhaven in 1933 and the lives of some of its passengers. Dunn speaks to the audience at the beginning and end of the film, telling us at first that it is a ship of fools and that we may find ourselves in some of the characters.
This is one of the best all-star casts ever assembled, right up there with "All About Eve" and "The Long, Hot Summer." The performances are as magnificent as the film is relentlessly depressing, with a Jewish man put at a table with a dwarf, while at the captain's table, another man preaches about the new Germany and extermination of Jews, the elderly, and those who are not fit. The optimistic Jew thinks Germany owes the Jews a great deal and vice versa, and with 1 million Jews there, certainly no one is going to kill all of them. A drug-addicted woman is being deported to an island, and the very ill ship's doctor falls in love with her and is tempted to give up his miserable life to care for her. A couple with a passionate sex life finds they are poles apart in every other way. A bitter, middle-aged woman comes to grips with her loneliness and tries to drink it away. And on and on, on the ship of fools. By the end of the film, looking at the Jew's beautiful family on the dock, the viewer is ready to reach for a razor blade.
Oskar Werner (Tyrone Power's son-in-law) gives a magnificent performance as a man discouraged about his life full of obligations, exhausted from ill health, and reaching out for one last chance at happiness. Simone Signoret, who falls for the doctor, is a warm and sympathetic countess, nervous about her future, her past dried up. Lee Marvin, as a southern drunk who wants to get laid, is perfection - Vivien Leigh herself was impressed with him. "What's this about the Jews?" he asks her. "I never saw a Jew until I was 15." "Perhaps you were too busy lynching Negroes to care about the Jews," she replies.
For Vivien Leigh, Scarlett is far behind her - 26 years behind her, in fact, with almost no vestige of her left due to Leigh's battles with manic-depression and the dissolution of her marriage to Laurence Olivier. As Scarlett herself would have said, "That girl doesn't exist anymore." Her character is the Blanche Dubois who didn't go to the asylum and some years later takes a cruise. Even the last gown she wears, as she dances the Charleston, is reminiscent of Blanche. It's a great performance as a beautiful woman who has seen better days and is disillusioned and bitter about men, love, and romance. Her big scenes at the end of the film - in the hallway and with Marvin - are fantastic.
I have to believe, though "Ship of Fools" is downbeat, that it leaves us with some hope. Dunn, as the dwarf philosopher, is too smart to stick around Germany once things heat up; perhaps his Jewish friend will see the light before it's too late. The Countess is a survivor; no reason she shouldn't survive the island. But for all of them, a certain way of life has ended, and they won't be going back.
One of the great films of the '60s. -
Abby Mann and Stanley Kramer came together again after their classic collaboration in "Judgment at Nuremberg" and became the nucleus of a tremendous cast and crew that put together another great film.
Oskar Werner heads an amazing ensemble in a powerful performance as the ill-fated ship's doctor. His performance simmers underneath an outer-shell of quiet desperation. Simone Signoret is very moving as the drug addicted, La Condesa.
Marvin is the comic relief for the film but does it in such a rare and textured way. His scenes with the great Michael Dunn are a classic in timing, truthfully theatrical behavior and sheer risk-taking in terms of the moments played. This is especially so in the "I could never hit a curve ball" scene. Marvin was a truly dangerously exciting and spontaneous talent--and very, very underrated as a complete actor who could do it all.
Michael Dunn is the narrator and conscience of the film. He is the character who is both a part of the "Fools" on board and yet he is also one out of time having the point of view of the audience; knowing what lies in the future. In the scene with Heinz Rühmann as Julius Lowenthal the Jewish salesman, Lowenthal suggests that patience is the way to deal with the Nazi's; "After all there are one million Jews in Germany. What do you think they will do? Kill us all?!" The tragic look on Dunn's face says it all. This was Dunn's first major film role and what a giant talent lay within that small frame.
Vivien Leigh is sadly and ironically wonderful in her final screen role. She has some savagely comic scenes with Lee Marvin, the last one being a scene where he mistakenly in the dark takes her for one of the prostitutes aboard the ship and she beats him to a pulp.
Jose Greco as Pepe, the head of the Spanish Dance troupe who also pimps for some of his dancers is excellent in a role of a hard-bitten and malevolent character.
George Segal and Elizabeth Ashley do the best they can in perhaps the most poorly written roles as the star-crossed young lovers. Jose Ferrer does a great job as the nazi bigot, Rieber. He brings humor and fullness of character to a very unsympathetic and frightening role. Barbara Luna, Lila Skala (Mother Maria to Syney Poitier's Homer Smith in "Lilies of the Field"), Werner Klemperer and virtually the entire ensemble all turn in moving and fully-lived performances.
Heinz Rühmann is wonderful as the Jewish salesman. He brings humor and an understated pathos to the role. Charles Korvin is fine as the Captain who is also Oskar Werner's friend and confidant. Alf Kjellin a very good actor often reduced to playing Nazis in American films is quite moving as the guilt-ridden Herr Freytag.
Ernst Gold's music is exciting using influences of both German and Spanish music. Stanley Kramer, the film making conscience of his time pulls together a great production as both producer and director in what was a remarkable string of great films.
This is not an overtly hopeful story. The film is full of ironies from the understated to those we are hit over the head with; and rightfully so. For these were and are extreme times. We as the audience know too much about what lies ahead for most of these people as they feebly try to position themselves while the world screams ever-closer towards war. While it was a statement about times past, one can be sure that Kramer and Mann both meant it to be a statement about us all when we give in to those motivations that create apathy and self-indulgence. It is perhaps hopeful in that if you can see yourself in some or one of the characters perhaps it will accompany the insight that can bring the perspective to change and the sympathy and humor to have compassion for ourselves and all the rest of us who are all trying to find their way home.
Finally,I must take exception to another comment made that suggests that the film, and I quote; "is very preachy about prejudice, but then Hollywood was full of Jewish people and they always loved a film set against anti-Semitism." First of all it is a sad generalization that suggests the ignorance of the writer. Second it is not true at all that those who were of the Jewish faith "always loved a film set against anti-Semitism." There were actually at the time only a handful of Hollywood films that even dealt with the subject. Some of those included the earlier Kramer/Mann collaboration Judgment at Nuremberg" and the first one of it's kind, "Gentleman's Agreement". The latter film being the first to really attack anti-Semitism was strongly opposed by those of the studio heads that were of the Jewish faith. They were actually, sadly overly careful about any anti-Jewish subject matter. They did not want to call attention to their being Jewish and often went out of their way to ignore the subject. One case in point was the film "The Seventh Cross" with Spencer Tracy as one of seven concentration camp victims who escapes and is hunted down one by one by the Nazis. This film never acknowledges the treatment of Jews at all. The majority of the films of the 40's - 60's that tried to deal with the issues of prejudice of any kind were almost single-handedly dealt with by Stanley Kramer alone in films like "The Defiant Ones", "Nuremberg", "Ship of Fools", "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and "The Home of the Brave". Kramer the lone voice of moral justice amongst filmmakers was not Jewish. Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List" was actually the first feature film to deal solely with the experience of life in a concentration camp. So much for the other subscriber's narrow and sadly prejudiced view. -
stills-615 September 1999A modernist morality tale with several different dark, sardonic stories. It creates a strange mood with its post WWII sensibility superimposed on pre-Nazi German culture. It's like The Love Boat as told by Ambrose Bierce. The best story revolves around Oskar Werner as he takes care of Simone Signoret. He sits at her bedside and listens with his head at a ridiculous angle to show his complete understanding - their situations are parallel, but their compositions are worlds apart. His slow slide into oblivion is fascinating to watch.
But the best performance belongs to Vivien Leigh in her final film role. She is absolutely stunning as "the 46-year old coquette" (as Werner Klemperer puts it). It's a terrible tragedy that she was not able to make very many movies in her career.
However, I have never cared for George Segal or Elizabeth Ashley and they weaken the film - particularly Segal who seems overmatched by the other members of the cast. But I did enjoy the rest of the movie and it's well worth getting through their story to see it. -
DavidAllenUSA7 November 2012"Ship Of Fools" (1965) movie is better than K. A. Porter's book, and possibly the best ensemble top actors movie ever made.
The movie got two Academy Awards....one for best cinematography, and the other for best art direction. Both deserved.
"Ship Of Fools" (1965) also deserved (but did not get, sadly) multiple "Best Actor" and Best Actress" awards ["Best Supporting Actor/ Actress awards, also].
High quality, in-depth acting of true talent and accomplishment have seldom ever reached the levels achieved in this movie, done repeatedly, again and again and again, from start to finish.
The movie contained at least half a dozen (possibly more) Academy Award winner best actor performances.....at least three best actor academy award winners performed (incredibily) in this movie (Lee Marvin, Vivien Leigh, and Jose Ferrer), and others (some who may have gotten academy awards I overlooked) were also wonderful in all ways (Simone Signoret, Oscar Werner, Michael Dunn, Elizabeth Ashley, George Segal, Gila Golan, Jose Greco, and Barbara Luna....who sang the famous "Dites Moi" song in South Pacific on the Broadway stage when she was a little girl in 1949!).
The titles at the start of movie are incredible, and deserve to be ranked with the best of all movie titles ever presented (someday, a special award for movie titles will be established....if this has not already been done, it is certainly an unmet need.....movie titles are important, are an art unto themselves, and a major asset to movies when done well.........see the titles for Bullitt 1968 and North By Northwest 1959 as only two examples of "the best of the best movie titles...the "Ship Of Fools" 1965 movie titles are part of the "the best of the best.") The Abby Mann written screenplay is really an original screenplay with an original story, by far better than the best selling Katherine Anne Porter novel also titled "Ship Of Fools" .... not at all the same as the book....better! Stanley Kramer's direction is wonderful.
Original music by Ernest Gold in the movie includes a German language song performed very well by Jose Ferrer. The title of the song is "Heute abend geh'n wir bummein auf der Reeperbahn," and it is a true "gemutlicheit" German language song, indeed, even if it was written in the USA for a Hollywood, English language movie.
This movie is a true gem, and deserves to be ranked as one of the best movies of all times.
All movie actors (I am one) should see this movie....it's a chance to see "the best of the best" one after the other after the other after the other.
Acting just doesn't get better than is the case in "Ship Of Fools" (1965).
-------------- Written by Tex Allen, SAG Actor Email Tex Allen at TexAllen@Rocketmail.Com Visit WWW.IMDb.Me/TexAllen for movie credits and biography information. -
rmax3048236 May 2005The only person aboard who seems to have his wits about him is Michael Dunn, the dwarf. His character tends to reserve judgments about people and things, more of an "observer," as he puts it. He has common sense too, and foresight. And as a matter of fact, he gives one of the few outstanding performances, although he's always good. Equally memorable are Lee Marvin as a washed up baseball player and Oskar Werner as a disillusioned ship's doctor. The other performances are competent, but these three are rather more than that.
Most of the comedy is provided by Dunn and Marvin. Dunn and Marvin have a scene together that is nearly perfect in its dialogue and timing. Marvin is drinking and getting maudlin. He tells Dunn that he can't hit a curve ball over the outside corner. Dunn asks him to explain what he's talking about, and there follows this outrageous schtick in which Marvin describes with horror how -- once it got about that he couldn't hit a curve ball over the outside corner -- that's all he ever saw, curve balls over the outside corner. He remembers his father sitting in the stands and hollering at him ("even though he wasn't there") -- "You're a BUM!" At one point, without adumbration, he suddenly claps his hands to his face and bursts into a torrent of sobs. He smashes glasses on the table while demonstrating his failure, and a shocked and slightly frightened Dunn looks on.
When Marvin's outburst is finished, Dunn chuckles and asks something like, "Do you know how many people know what a curve ball is?" There is a long pause while Marvin stares at him, unsmiling, unblinking, his flabby lower lip pendulant. The pause continues. And continues. And continues. (It's an old scene-stealing trick -- delay your answer to make your lines seem more important.) At long long last, Marvin answers, "No." Dunn explains that out of a billion people in the world, only a handful even know what a curve ball over the outside corner is, let alone that Marvin can't hit one, so he's being a little harsh on himself. Marvin ponders this, then asks, "You know what I think?" And there follows another of those infinitely long pauses before Dunn answers. (The two actors and the director must have worked on this together for a long time, otherwise none of them could have helped breaking up with laughter.) Dunn finally replies, "No." Marvin says slowly and emphatically, "I think you're a sawed off INTELLECTUAL." Then adds, "Drink up, shorty." That scene, with its improvised quality, its near-perfect timing and acting, its camera placement, should be shown in every film class.
I don't want to leave out Oskar Werner who, along with Simone Signoret, provides the romance and the drama. He is a doctor with a heart condition and, out of pity for Signoret, begins providing her with the morphine she's addicted to. They fall in love. Now -- that's usually about the last thing I want to see in one of these "Grand Hotel" movies, a tragic romance. But this one WORKS. I can't remember many performances on film that improve on Oskar Werner's. He seems almost inspired and the role has depth enough for him to display some range too. I'm not sure the romance with its inherent conflict between the 40ish Signoret and the 30ish Werner would be as admirable as it is if it weren't for the actors. Signoret is not particularly attractive. She's overweight and has a husky voice and is a social outcast. If the role had been cast with a younger, beautiful actress, it could easily have been turned into just another star-crossed-lover sob story. It's especially because Signoret looks so beat upon and worn and dumpy that the relationship has some resonance with real life, which is always sloppy when it comes to romance. (We always fall in love with the wrong person, don't we?)
There isn't space to go into the plot, which isn't really worth too much attention anyway. I haven't read Katherine Ann Porter's novel, the title of which is based on a painting by Hieronymous Bosch that hangs in the Louvre and was finished some time before 1500. The plot has a bit of ambiguity. We sympathized with the displaced Spanish laborers in steerage, but two of their kids throw overboard a dog that belongs to a childless couple. A laborer dies saving the dog, but the "parents" don't inquire about his identity or show any gratitude. They care more about the dog's having gotten wet than about the death of a proletarian. I think we're meant to feel superior to the elderly couple with the dog.
Therein lies the problem I have with Abbey Mann and, to a lesser extent, Stanley Kramer. The simple people of color are good. The wealthy white people are neurotics. (Except for a dwarf.) The rich whites are dumb, too. "Listen, my friend," says a Jewish salesman, "there are one million Jews in Germany alone. What are they going to do -- kill all of us?" The viewer's memory toggles into "six million" right away, a figure that rings chimes in our brains.
I can't speak for everyone but I dislike being preached at by self-righteous screenwriters, particularly when they deal with "big" issues that must be handled delicately so as not to be cheapened. Abbey Mann accepted his Oscar in the name of "all intellectuals everywhere." I have a feeling that when he was writing "Ship of Fools" it didn't occur to him that he might himself be aboard.
Give wardrobe an award. At a costume party, Jose Ferrer as the Nazi, is dressed as some kind of jester or devil, and the costume seems to have leaped right out of Bosch's painting. -
gbrumburgh8 March 2001One of my favorite indulges over the years has been "Ship of Fools," a 1965 glossy, episodic entertainment done strictly grand scale. Based on Katherine Anne Porter's epic novel, the Oscar-nominated "Best Picture" centers on a sundry group of travelers circa 1933 who clash "Grand Hotel" style on a German ocean liner bound, via Mexico, for Germany (and impending doom it would seem) just as strong Nazi sentiment was breeding. The ship becomes a microcosm of pre-WWII life and mores, with a plethora of subplots alternately swelling and ebbing throughout - situations that alter the course of some of its passengers and crew members, for better or worse.
From the clever opening collage of credits (don't miss this part) set to a catchy, flavorful Latin score to its fascinating all-star disembarkation at the end, it's smooth sailing for most of this trip, guided with an assured hand by the always capable Stanley ("Judgment at Nuremberg") Kramer, with certain cast members (Simone Signoret, Oskar Werner, Vivien Leigh, Lee Marvin, Michael Dunn) coming off better than others (José Ferrer, Elizabeth Ashley, George Segal).
A number of compelling vignettes acted out by the choice, eclectic ensemble make up for the sometimes turgid melodramatics that occur on board as our "ship of fools" are forced to examine their own pride and prejudice while victimized by others. Who can forget the tormented Simone Signoret and Oskar Werner (both Oscar-nominated) as the morphine-addicted political prisoner and dutiful ship's physician who provide the film with its most poignant and tragic shipboard romance. Their clandestine encounters are exquisitely written and beautifully realized. Or Vivien Leigh's coy, aging elitist, Mary Treadwell, who delivers a brilliantly despairing monologue in front of a makeup mirror that, in turn, sets up a wildly climactic shoe-bashing scene with Lee Marvin's besotted baseballer when he viciously assaults, then profusely apologizes to the now-humiliated matron after mistaking her in the dark for a cooch dancer. Or José Greco & company's steamy, frenetic flamenco sequence during a raucous, after-hours party. Or dwarf actor Michael Dunn's sublime Greek Chorus that effectively bookends the movie (the Oscar-nominated Dunn subsequently played evil Dr. Loveless on TV's "Wild, Wild West" series). These glorious scenes and more help to balance out the less serviceable ones, particularly those involving Jose Ferrer's boisterous, irritating Nazi bigot who borders on caricature, and Elizabeth Ashley and George Segal's turbulent lovers who come off dull and forced.
Ernest Laszlo's lustrous black-and-white cinematography was suitably Oscar awarded, while the whole look, feel and tone of the movie is decidedly old-style theatre at its best. This movie has remained one of my all-time favorite wallows. -
Pat-5428 December 1998The story takes place in 1933, but the film looks like the year it was made, 1965. This always drives me nuts! All the women have 1960's bouffant hairdos! It ridiculous. But despite this major flaw, the performances are great. Sadly, this is Vivien Leigh's last film. She died two years later in 1967. She was 54.
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Red-12521 March 2007Ship of Fools (1965) directed by Stanley Kramer, is based on the novel by Katherine Anne Porter. The film is a reasonably faithful cinematic adaptation, although it lacks the novel's subtlety and complexity. Director Kramer assembled an all-star cast--including Vivien Leigh (her last film), Simone Signoret, José Ferrer, Lee Marvin, Oskar Werner, José Greco, and George Segal.
The film takes place entirely on shipboard, except for the final scene. Naturally, the close confines of the ship and the lack of privacy bring about forced interactions, as would have been the case in reality. These interactions form the basic plot of both the book and the film.
The time is 1933, so the passengers don't know what we know--things are changing rapidly in Germany and everything will be different in just a year or two. In fact, that's the basic weakness of the plot--it's easy in retrospect to know just how wrong the Jewish salesman is when he assures people that the current unpleasantness will blow over and all will be well.
Some features of the novel were unfortunately omitted from the film, especially the roles of the Spanish twins, Ric and Rac. In the novel, they are the embodiments of senseless evil, and every chapter in which they appear is laden with foreboding. In the film, the children commit one evil act, but it makes no sense because we haven't been prepared for it.
Director Kramer made one choice I consider foolish. In the novel, a young woman named Elsa Lutz is realistically unhappy. She is unattractive, not very intelligent, not gifted or graceful, and her prospects for marriage are bleak. In the film, she is portrayed as a stunning ingénue, who will blossom into an even more stunning woman. No dramatic tension there. Porter had it right, Kramer had it wrong.
All in all, "Ship of Fools" is a classic movie by an excellent director and it's loaded with stars. It's not an essential film, but it's entertaining enough and worth renting. -
In 1933, a German passenger vessel leaves Veracruz, Mexico to navigate to Cuba, Tenerife, Spain and Bremerhaven, Germany as final destination along twenty-six days. The Captain Thiele (Charles Korvin) is a good friend of the ship's doctor Wilhelm Schumann (Oskar Werner), who has a serious heart problem. The first-class passengers are the lonely American Mary Treadwell (Vivien Leigh); the bigoted Siegfried Rieber (Jose Ferrer) that woos the futile Lizzi Spoekenkieker (Christiane Schmidtmer); the rude American player Bill Tenny (Lee Marvin); the aspiring painter David (George Segal) and his girlfriend Jenny (Elizabeth Ashley) that financially supports him; the gypsy dancer Pepe (Jose Greco) and his troupe of prostitutes posing of dancers; the dwarf Karl Glocken (Michael Dunn); the Jew Julius Lowenthal (Heinz Ruehmann); the German Freytag (Alf Kjellin) that was married to a Jewish woman; and a weird couple that treats their dog as a son.
In Cuba, Spanish sugar farm laborers embark to travel to Tenerife and are left in steerage. La Condesa (Simone Signoret) also embarks accused of treachery and soon Dr. Schumann and she fall in love with each other. Along the journey, the best and the worst of each passenger is disclosed.
"Ship of Fools" is a messy soap opera about impossible love, prejudice and other things. The story has several senseless subplots, most of them boring or silly, basically trying to show the basis of the Nazi Party. The outstanding cast deserved a better screenplay. My vote is six.
Title (Brazil): "A Nau dos Insensatos" ("The Ship of the Unwise") -
malvernp27 June 2006From Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" to M-G-M's "Grand Hotel"(1932), the device of interlocking the stories of a diverse group of strangers/travelers to tell how each influences the others has been very commonly used in fiction.
It is the one that underpins "Ship of Fools." In Chaucer's masterpiece, the stories are told separately, and range from the ponderous to the humorous. But the tales are fun to read----even after all the centuries that have passed since their creation.
"Grand Hotel" may now be dated, but seeing it is also a fun experience. The story and acting reflect the style of a different time, but if taken on its own terms------this film can provide many enjoyable moments of screen entertainment.
"Ship of Fools" is another matter. It is mostly ponderous, and has a minimum amount of humor. Its all-star cast delivers a series of widely varying performances-------from the scenery-chewing ones by Jose Ferrer and Lee Marvin to the world-weary portrayals by Oskar Werner and Simone Signoret to the acting school products of George Segal and Elizabeth Ashley. And the film does go on---and on----and on! "Ship of Fools" should be best remembered today as Vivien Leigh's last film----in a role that she knew quite well by then-----a variation of her Blanche DuBois character in "Streetcar Named Desire." Her Mrs. Treadwell is a monument to all the depleted middle-aged women in fiction who become shadows of what they once were, and who are constant reminders of what living an empty life ultimately produces.
But she sure was a beautiful woman, even in her final screen appearance. She died just two years later at the age of 54. -
A strange, rather offbeat morality tale from Katherine Anne Porter's bulky novel, SHIP OF FOOLS manages to hold interest even though the characters are never fully realized and the full potential of the novel isn't to be found in the screenplay.
It's best described as a multi-episode GRAND HOTEL at sea, episodic with the love story between Simone Signoret and Oskar Werner at the core and easily the best acted piece, despite the soap-opera overtones. Vivien Leigh's bitter American widow is somewhat theatrical--but comes to life finally in the scene where she uses her shoe to beat Lee Marvin when he makes drunken advances to her. She looks somewhat worn and fragile (which the role requires) and this was her last film only two years before her death.
Porter's novel made diabolic use of the twin children who are almost missing from the screenplay. George Segal and Elizabeth Ashley are wasted in lesser roles as young romantics. Michael Dunn is sly and altogether winning as the dwarf who opens and closes the film with his narrative. Charles Korvin is excellent as the ship's Captain who is constantly giving advice to Oskar Werner who stubbornly refuses to listen to his well meaning friend.
If the story interests you, try reading the novel--much more complex, much richer in characters and atmosphere. The film is overlong, has some dull stretches and has a meager score by Ernest Gold that is oddly silent during some of the most emotional moments. A good old-fashioned musical score by someone like Max Steiner would have helped immeasurably in getting over the dull spots.
Summing up: too preachy when dealing with anti-semitism and lacks the punch of the novel. -
On the acting level, this is mixed, but mostly good. The main idea seems to be: everyone has a major flaw, a secret, or at least some sort of personal vulnerability. It's part of the human condition. These flaws range from mere shyness about one's appearance to an annihilating sense of superiority. The latter is embodies by Jose Ferrer, as a spokesman for recently elected Nazi party in Germany, where the ship is destined to end its journey. While blustering and obnoxious, Ferrer's is one of the more effective performances. The worst--at at least, the most annoying--come from George Segal and Elizabeth Ashley, whose tormented relationship is apparently doomed by an inability to accept one another as they are (despite a lot of histrionic shouting, in too many scenes that only make the film seem longer). The most pleasing performances come from Vivien Leigh, Michael Dunn, Alf Kjellin, Heinz Rühmann, and Werner Klemperer and Charles Korvin. There's is some overblown hysteria among a few minor players, but the cast is largely quite solid. Best of all, and the main reason for watching, are the scenes between Simone Signorety and Oscar Werner, both of whom won Best Supporting Acting Academy Awards for their work here. Signoret is no surprise--she was never less than superb in just about everything she did. Werner was never better, as a broken man facing poor health and life-altering personal choices.
The period (early to mid-1930s) is felt only in the dialog, referencing political events in Germany. In general, the film seems very much of its own time, particularly in the costumes for women, which only reflect the film's own decade. The film misses greatness ( A floating GRAND HOTEL, this is not), but patient viewers may find it worthy of a look. -
bkoganbing20 October 2006This is a film to be watched over and over again because something new can be seen in it on each viewing. This may very well be Stanley Kramer's masterpiece film.
Kramer put together a perfectly cast group of international players and the wonderful thing about Ship of Fools is that even the tiniest roles are invested with real personality. There are no speaking parts in Ship of Fools that are just functionary.
Ship of Fools is set on a German ocean liner sailing from Vera Cruz to Bremen with a stop in Spain to unload the steerage passengers who are a gang of laborers who are returning from Mexico to Spain. The crew members who we get to know are the worldly wise Captain Charles Korvin, the ship's disillusioned doctor with a heart condition Oskar Werner, and the purser with romantic inclinations, Werner Klemperer.
Sounds like the Love Boat so far, but it's about 180 degrees the opposite of that.
You can best compare Ship of Fools to Grand Hotel which was also in a German setting and set in the same time period that Grand Hotel came out, 1932. The passengers all have stories and the intricate plot involves all in each other's story. It's a brilliantly woven tale.
It's impossible to pick out favorites in this cast, they're all so good. Simone Signoret is the mysterious countess with a morphine addiction being deported to Spain. She befriends Oskar Werner because as a doctor he can give her easy access to her needed drugs. Werner knows this on some level, but he gets involved anyway because he sees her as a last chance for life after the heart attack he sustained.
Jose Ferrer is the bellicose Nazi prototype who can't seem to find much good in any other people save the Germans. He's traveling with a statuesque blond who's not his wife. In the latest viewing of this film for me, I noted that Ferrer at a costume party put on a pair of horns that gave him a satanic countenance.
George Segal and Elizabeth Ashley are the young people, both artists and in love. Ashley loves Segal and vice versa except that Segal is rather full of himself and his work. Ashley gets herself innocently involved with Jose Greco and his troop of flamenco dancers who double as prostitutes. Greco by the way is outstanding in his role.
Lee Marvin's breakthrough year turned out to be 1965 because Ship of Fools together with his Oscar performance in Cat Ballou established him as a leading man, not just a brilliant character actor. He plays a loudmouth southern redneck who spews his own views out about both blacks and Latinos. Marvin is a former baseball player who has a brilliant scene with Michael Dunn as he starts crying in his beer over his inability to hit an outside curve ball which brought lower and lower in the professional baseball world. His was the type of mentality that had to be cracked when Jackie Robinson integrated the game in the next decade. Marvin also has an unforgettable encounter with Vivien Leigh who he drunkenly mistakes for one of Greco's girls.
Down the cast list, but a favorite of mine is Alf Kjellin. He's a German who is married to a Jewish woman who is not traveling with him. He listens silently to Ferrer's smarmy anti-Semitism, but says nothing. It comes out about his wife and he's ostracized from the captain's table. He reacts in anger, bitterness, and shame that he was guilty of not loving his wife enough to stand up before.
Heinz Ruhmann and Michael Dunn are the outsiders, those who in Ferrer's New World Order would be eliminated. A Jewish man who believes in patience and tolerance and a cynical dwarf whose parents give him spending money so he's not around them. Ruhmann was in fact a star in German cinema during the Nazi era and this film and his role as the Jewish peddler Lowenthal are almost an expiation for him. Ruhmann apparently had no political background and was not a Nazi cheerleader, otherwise he would not have had a career in post war Germany. Dunn tells him he might be the biggest fool on the boat and Ruhmann says if Ferrer's crowd gets in power, what can they do, kill all of them.
If I had to pick one stand out for me it is Vivien Leigh as the cynical middle-aged divorcée, mourning her youth that has passed. This was Leigh's farewell performance and so much of her own troubled life was put into this one. It's a complex role, she's self centered, but a survivor much like Scarlett O'Hara. She's also a person not totally tuned out to the problems of others. It was her indiscretion that led people to know about Kjellin's wife and she nails Lee Marvin when he comments about what is everyone's problem with Jews. She comments with deadly accuracy that he was to busy lynching black people to hear about Jews. She becomes a confidante to Liz Ashley as well. It was a grand performance for Leigh.
Ship of Fools got several Oscar nominations including Best Picture and acting nominations for Oskar Werner for Best Actor and Michael Dunn for Best Supporting Actor. Hard to even single them out in this brilliant ensemble.
This one is a classic not to be missed. -
lasttimeisaw8 December 2011There is a ship full of passengers in the film, but it is not Titanic, there's no icebergs either, with a satirical overtone, this Oscar-winning (BEST ART DIRECTION and CINEMATOGRAPHY in B&W section) film from Hollywood's ill-fated tycoon Stanley Kramer, who has nominated for 9 Oscars without a single win, could be best interpreted as a bourgeois lampoon to the times before WWII (1930s).
The hotchpotch of the first-class passengers (from Mexico to Europe) depicted in the film are complying with the milieu of that particular period, notably the 3 Oscar-nominated performance from Simone Signoret, Oskar Werner and Michael Dunn (the latter is a very interesting example of a nomination from a normally pedestrian presence, I hope the dwarf card is not the case here), and judging by my taste, Heinz Rühmann and Vivien Leigh are also quite in the top form, especially Ms. Leigh, not to mention her turbulent real life status at that time, her frail with dignity performance is rather too harrowing to watch. However the true heartrending sympathy I am able to sense is from a divine Simone Signoret, a countess on exile, along with her foredooming love story with the inward doctor on board Oskar Werner.
One thing niggling me is the film's aloof stance towards the poor underclass, they are living in another parallel world even though they are on the exactly same boat with those well-off patrons in the first class. I expected that the film could have gone much further by creating the contradictions between these two classes and which would be more emotionally radical to underline the more meaningful exposition on human's prejudices. But the film doesn't offer this on its tilted menu and most characters are indulging themselves in their own insignificant trifles which I easily lost my absorption to address myself to. -
eddjf-130 September 2006Not one moment of this film is without meaning. While some of it is a bit too obvious, most is done with a light enough touch. The main reason I like this film is because of how closely it touches true human emotions. The relationship between Simone Signore and Oskar Werner is a masterpiece in subtlety and never follows a trite pattern. Just as Werner says it is the only thing that is real to him, it is so very real to us also. The other characters are not as well developed in my opinion, though they are still interesting. I fell in love with Oskar Werner in this film & every time I see it,it is fresh. I will have to find a copy of the book to see if the other characters are developed more there. I have seen other films that are moving & approached so very near to reality, but this is the only one that I feel is/was a slice of reality.
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writers_reign12 November 2008Alec Wilder, discussing the songs of Rodgers and Hammerstein said that he felt almost obligated to don Evening Dress before listening to them and the same may be said about the movies of Stanley Kramer; this is a guy who doesn't do confections or soufflé's, only Social Significance. When we speak of the Lubitsch 'touch' we envisage a snowflake fashioned from gossamer, if there were, God forbid, a Kramer 'touch' it would surely be a sledgehammer rampant on a field of moral tracts. Viewers who had read the best-selling novel by Katherine Ann Porter - best known for the short story rather than the novel - would have known what to expect but what of the good burghers of Upper Sandusky or Peoria who might, quite reasonably, take a gander at the title and figure Marx Brothers - Stateroom - on hard-boiled egg. Never fear, Kramer has it covered, step forward Michael Dunn to top-and-tail it via pieces direct to camera. Given that he is, as he is allowed to say himself (AH, those far-off days of non-PC, where are they now) a dwarf, there's an impish part of me that thinks as a Talking Head this is ridiculous given that there's not much else of him. Be that as it may he tells us that this is, indeed, a ship of fools and even manages to make it sound as though it means something. The cruise ship in question is en route from Vera Cruz to Bremerhaven and the passengers are mostly German returning to their homeland (there's a nod somewhere in there to the reverse traffic in 1945 when Nazi war criminals were fleeing to the relative safety of South America but don't reach for it, you'll risk nosebleed. Porter set her novel in 1932 but Kramer moves it forward one year because, wait for it, kiddies, 1933 was the year Hitler became Chancellor, now, how about THAT for SIGNIFICANCE. What we have here, of course, is a Microcosm, a Grand Hotel with a keel, of you will - or even if you won't, and the movie Grand Hotel came out in 1932. You could, of course, do this sort of stuff all day but sooner or later you have to get around to the cast. In what was destined to be her last film Vivien Leigh draws top billing but is blown away by Simone Signoret with second billing and a shade more screen time. In fact with about eighteen minutes tops on screen Signoret leaves everyone dead in the water and you don't know how good it feels to be able to use this phrase in a context that is actually applicable, she even makes Osker Werner look good. Lee Marvin gives the impression he's in another film altogether whilst George Segal and Jose Ferrer phone it it. Ironically for a guy who doesn't do frivolous Kramer throws in an ending right out of musical comedy as the remaining passengers (Signoret disembarked en route) walk down the gangplank in Bremerhaven to the accompaniment of an OOM-PAH Band. You couldn't make it up. Ten out of ten for Signoret, six for everything else.
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Ed-from-HI9 June 2019Stanley Kramer's 1965 film of Katherine Anne Porter's acclaimed novel is full of immensely interesting (and non-cliché) character-studies focusing on a group (mostly European-German passengers & crew, but also a few Americans and Mexicans) cloistered on a large Ship-freighter heading back to Germany after a stay in Mexico (the darkly-ironic Year being 1933 in the film; but 1931 for Porter's novel based at least in part on characters she actually observed, interacted with on a similar Trans-Atlantic ocean-voyage)
This film and stories contained-within are intriguing and unpredictable, reflecting a time in history portending the inexorable-intractable march toward World-War II conflagration & devastation (this ship voyage reflecting the proverbial 'calm before the horrific storm').......
And "Ship of Fools" presents a 'microcosm' of diverse characters traveling on this Ship encompassing wide-ranging philosophical-cultural and ethnic differences intermingling-interacting in sometimes cordial and other times hostile & sarcastic manner (the general atmosphere is that of distinct melancholy inter-laced with a foreboding sense that civilization is inexorably heading towards a much darker and more tenuous existence - once European Landfall is reached)
The qualitative aspect of Kramer's film being that it is not overtly 'preachy' and none of the characters are either villainous of heroic archetypes, most seem multi-dimensional and quite real.
The great Austrian actor Oskar Werner plays the sensitive and humane but dispirited ship's doctor 'Wilhelm Schumann' who temporarily falls in Love with legendary French actress Simone Signoret playing the Spanish 'La Condesa' (a doomed and forlorn love-affair growing out of desperate human-need for connection during uncertain times, with unknown futures awaiting both of them) Oskar Werner was a great screen presence of the 1960's essaying a number of complex roles in important films like 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold' --- 'Fahrenheit 451' --- 'Shoes of the Fisherman' ---- and later 'Voyage of the Damned' (from the mid 70's) usually portraying exceedingly humane but ultimately tragic figures.
Lee Marvin as washed-up, alcoholic, once-potential baseball Star 'Bill Tenny' who couldn't quite make-it in the 'Big-Leagues' - and whose deep-melancholy is only surpassed by Vivien Leigh as the downtrodden-beleaguered/World-weary Mary Treadwell.
George Segal and Elizabeth Ashley as young-passionate-American Lovers who are not completely sure they are 'right' for each other (getting to know each other more deeply over the long-haul ocean-trip)
Jose Ferrer is incessantly-boastful proto-Nazi 'Siegfried Rieber' who extolls all things Aryan and vociferously derides-denigrates all foreign cosmopolitan influences
I thought one of the most interesting characters of the group (and perhaps the most principled & ethical) was Alf Kjellin as 'Freytag' an ethnic-German who feels himself to be every-bit as German-in mind and spirit as anyone else aboard the Ship- but the small fact that he married a Jewish woman (a few years back in Germany) makes him the object of ridicule among some of the extreme-Nationalists at his dinner-table (he does show substantial courage standing-up for his wife in one harrowing scene, but also great-guilt-regret in the fact that he separated from her due to societal-pressures - but now he desperately wants to find her and reunite upon returning to Germany - but she might already be long-gone)
Heinz Ruhmann (who was a famous and popular ethnic German actor of the time, in his first English-language film) gives an amazingly nuanced performance (full of genuine humor & pathos) as pragmatic-optimistic German-Jewish businessman 'Julius Lowenthal' one of the reasons Ruhmann's characterization is so fascinating is because throughout the entire movie (and even after numerous unprovoked vocal taunts from Ferrer's boastfully-bigoted 'Siegfried') 'Julius Lowenthal' remains eternally-optimistic even when his diminutive friend and trusted-fellow-passenger 'Carl Glocken' warns that it has become painfully clear & disheartening that the once familiar German-culture Julius Lowenthal grew-up in, and knew-well & deeply-admired in his youth ==> is now (circa1933) on the cusp of a tragically-cruel transition in which Jews (no matter how previously loyal and assimilated) will soon become completely unwelcome and placed in imminent mortal-danger. Lowenthal continues to brush-off such warnings as just a 'passing-phase' (wishful thinking on his part and on the part of many other German-Jews of the time & place) and Lowenthal still demonstrates great pride, when showing Carl Glocken the 'Iron-cross' he won for Bravery defending Germany during the 'first' War (a tragically-ironic but also quite poignant moment)
But in many ways the unexpected 'STAR' of this film is the physically-diminutive, but intellectually & poetically Gigantic Michael Dunn as 'Carl Glocken' who has been described by others as the 'Greek-chorus' - in a sense he seems like our moral-conscience and tour-guide thru this massive-Ship thoroughly populated by genuine 'fools' A few times 'Carl Glocken' looks straight at us (penetrating the 'fourth-wall') as if to emphasize his warning directly to us = to not aimlessly wander into traps set-up to easily ensnare 'we fools' = e.g. like those characters who blindly-support the forward march towards devastating World-War conflagration with anarchy and dark-matter Chaos not far behind........or those choosing to remain clueless (attaining a-level of convenient-indifference) and effectively allowing calamity just to 'happen' without mustering any meaningful resistance.......... or perhaps those too wrapped-up in their own personal melancholy-misfortune to even care, or shed a single tear....
"Ship of Fools" is difficult viewing in many ways, the characters although fascinating are not necessarily all 'likable' and there is much ambiguity to some of their motivations & actions (or inaction) but that very ambiguity and complexity is also perhaps this film's greatest strength - and the superb acting performances (from some of the screen's All-time finest thespians) would rate this 10-Stars on acting-merits alone! -
evanston_dad12 December 2006"Ship of Fools" reminded me of "Grand Hotel": take a bunch of big-name stars, fit them out in a screenplay full of romantic melodrama, and watch everyone go to town. Unfortunately, the formula doesn't work so well when the backdrop for the story is pre-WWII Germany; it makes the melodrama seem not only irrelevant, but also somewhat tasteless.
I couldn't find much to care about in this film, despite its solid production values and talented cast. The doomed love affair at the center of the drama seems tailor made to bore one to death -- other plot lines, like the one involving George Segal and Elizabeth Ashley, get short shrift by the screenwriters.
There are three reasons to see "Ship of Fools": 1.) Michael Dunn, who gives a winsome and entirely winning performance as the diminutive narrator and speaks directly into the camera in a gimmick that shouldn't work but does 2.) Lee Marvin, giving a pleasingly unlikable performance as a belligerent American 3.) and Vivien Leigh, whose morose character at one point in the film breaks into a five-second spirited Charleston, which by itself makes the film worth sitting through.
Grade: B -
cardinalcall12 June 2021What makes this film great is its historical context and the subtle acting of the two stars: Ockar Werner and Simone Signoret.
You see Nazi Germany before the war, and the mindset of the German people. What's haunting is the similarity to the mindset today when fascism is now predominant in America and Europe now, with citizens oblivious to it.
Every citizen of the United States should view this movie. History repeats itself. Mussolini had defined fascism as the merger of corporatism and the government. So it was true in Nazi Germany, and so it is true today with huge corporations owning politicians and the media. -
deacon_blues-38 January 2014Stanley Kramer made some really great films in the 50s and 60s, but this ain't one of 'em. The film suffers from an over-pretentious egotism about existential angst and finding meaning in a meaningless existence—really tired fair, especially when it is not done well.
The really tired, dated subplot is that of David (George Segal) and Jenny (Elizabeth Ashley). Their silly conversations about gender roles, self expression, and "belonging together" get really old very fast.
The thread dealing with Lowenthal, Glocken, and Rieber is the most relevant, entertaining, and thought provoking. Lowenthal is the most telling role of the film. A truly tragic figure who has no idea of the enormity of his delusions about being a German Jew in 1933.
But the whole thing is a mess when all is said and done.
The thread about Wilhelm and La Condesa is really a waste, since I can't imagine leaving my dog for the mega-frumpy Simone Signoret, never mind a wife and two sons. Oskar Werner is very genuine, but Signoret is her usual over-rated, tedious self. The two performances just don't mesh, and the result does not ring true.
Tenny (Lee Marvin) really is an ape, as Mrs. Treadwell observes. A truly ugly American in the most stereotypical sense.
The thread dealing with the wheelchair preacher, his nephew, and the flamenco whore seemed really worthless to me, just a cheap shot by Kramer at religion and morality.
But the acting really is brilliant all around, I must admit. Leigh is especially poignant as Mrs. Treadwell, probably the meatiest role in this film. She is thoroughly reprehensible, and without sympathetic appeal. And yet .. we pity her even if she won't pity herself. -
gridoon12 April 2001Well-intentioned, star-packed, but overlong drama. Many people have interpreted it as an allegory, but it lacks the unifying vision that would actually bring all the episodes together and give them a dramatic payoff; the movie seems to be going around in circles for about 145 minutes, and the dwarf's final remark, probably meant to be ironic, just comes across as perfectly honest (you'll see what I mean). Arguably, Oskar Werner gives the best performance here, while Vivien Leigh looks fearfully self-conscious about her age. (**1/2)