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The Caine Mutiny, one of the few major motion pictures Edward Dmytryk was able to direct after becoming blacklisted and one of the infamous Hollywood Ten, is an updated telling of Mutiny on the Bounty this time set aboard a Navy battleship during WWII. Despite of this, the female costumes in the early scenes have that distinctly postwar Christian Dior “New Look.”
It’s a pretty uninteresting film until Humphrey Bogart shows up as Lt. Commander Queeg, the unstable and increasingly unreasonable commander of the ship. In spite of an inert love story involving the young and fresh faced Willie Keith (Robert Francis) and the girl he leaves back home when he graduates from naval school, the first part of the film has more in common with Melville’s Billy Budd than Mutiny on the Bounty. This time, Willie Keith is the young idealist that joins the family of a war ship. As Keith becomes increasingly disillusioned with his crew the soundtrack becomes something of a contrast. The jolly patriotic music doesn’t jibe with the fact that none of the sailors are not happy to be there. It fails on all levels.
When Bogie does appear he isn’t even dignified with a good entrance, with the soundtrack once again too happy for the apprehensive figure it surrounds. Queeg is more like a scary teacher than Captain Bligh. He puts the young Keith in charge of the crew, adamant that Keith makes sure each of the men is properly dressed in their uniform. This creates a moral dilemma for Keith. Should he be subordinate to the overbearing Queeg or loyal to his pals?
There is no question that is Humphrey Bogart’s performance that makes this film. He plays Queeg as a man who was already on the edge of sanity when we first see him on screen. As the story progresses, we see Queeg come closer and closer to a total mental breakdown. Bogart had better roles, but he is as unforgettable here as a man consumed by his paranoia as he ever was. Dmytryk, wisely, gives us many extreme close-ups of his face, they are an intense manifestation of the panic beneath Bogie’s mournful eyes.
Unusual for a WWII movie, The Caine Mutiny features virtually no external enemy. There are no Japanese fighter planes or unterseeboots. All of the conflict occurs within the ship. Interestingly enough, the absence of carnage makes it likely that the film could have been golden as a comedy. There is much camp potential in the character of Queeg. Stories like Moby-Dick and Mutiny on the Bounty had been filmed so many times that by the 1950s a campy incarnation of such tyrant sea-farers was long overdue.
An interesting aspect of the film is its contrast of the world of men and that of women. The camaraderie that Keith shares with his men compared to how uptight he is around his mother and fiancé is indicative of the film’s doubt about the level of friendship between the sexes. In any event, the lovey-dovey scenes shot in Yosemite have nothing to do with the film and turn dreary.
The real pick up point is when Lt. Tom Keefer (Fred MacMurray) and Lt. Steve Maryk (Van Johnson) engage in a heated debate about the state of Queeg’s mind. When the inner motives for each of them taking their side on the debate become evident, the film begins to work perfectly. The mystery of the missing frozen strawberries that serves as the climax of the film adds to the tension and the masterful storytelling remains intact until the actual mutiny, when Maryk leads the men to a take over of the ship during a storm.
The ending is what really sinks the film, however. During their court marshal for mutiny, Maryk and the rest of the crew are defended by Lt. Greenwald (José Ferrer) who proves Queeg’s insanity before the court in a powerful and dramatic scene. Maryk and the rest of the crew are pardoned and while they are celebrating, Greenwald tells them how disgusted he is with them and their conduct and how their refusal to help Queeg after he asked them for cooperation in a touching speech made earlier in the film. Here, the film presents a problem. It leaves its message and direction in an ambiguous light. A film doesn’t have to take sides. Indeed, a smart film works best when it gives the audience no answers and let’s them form their own conclusions. But The Caine Mutiny wants the audience to take sides and doesn’t seem to know which or why. We are left not knowing what exactly the film wants to tell us about Lt. Queeg or the crew of the U.S.S. Caine.
What we are left with beyond any doubt is Humphrey Bogart’s compelling performance. Bogart was an actor that worked tirelessly up until his last film and late in his career he delivered this performance. It was a performance so strong that it raised this film from its murky depths and made it a frequently gripping ocean drama.