Review: Voyage of the Damned

An apparent PR exercise has a group of German Jews expelled in 1939 sent off on a ship headed for Havana, with the Nazis knowing very well that they are unlikely to be allowed safe haven there. Max von Sydow is the dutiful, non-political captain who is simply doing his job. Helmut Griem is the most vocally Anti-Semitic crew member, a member of the Nazi party who constantly berates and mocks the passengers, inciting violence. He frequently butts heads with more sympathetic, young crew member Malcolm McDowell (one of his rare nice guy roles). James Mason, Fernando Rey, Denholm Elliott, and Jose Ferrer solidly play Cuban dignitaries of varying degrees of morality as the ship looks for a safe port to dock. Mason plays the most compassionate of the lot, with Rey and Ferrer by far the least sympathetic. Ben Gazzara plays humanitarian Morris Troper, trying his best on the ground to get the passengers safely docked somewhere. Children of the late 80s and early 1990s will want to take note of a very young Georgina ‘T-Bag’ Hale as one of the passengers. Horndogs will want to take note of the unmistakable Laura Gemser, star of the trashy “Emanuelle” films (and co-star of “Emmanuelle II”, note the spelling difference to denote two different franchises) in a scene with a very lucky Orson Welles.

 

Underrated 1976 Stuart Rosenberg (“Cool Hand Luke”, “Brubaker”) all-star pic depicts a disaster far more serious than the likes of Irwin Allen (“The Poseidon Adventure”) ever depicted. This one’s based on truth, a sad and disgusting story about prejudice, persecution, and apathy on a far too large scale. There is probably an overabundance characters, but it ends a truly moving experience, with several fine performances. The most impressive are Max von Sydow as the dutiful, compassionate captain, Oskar Werner as the rich and opportunistic but ultimately sympathetic Berlin doctor, Faye Dunaway as Werner’s defiant wife who refuses to look weak, Helmut Griem as a smug and thoroughly detestable Nazi supporter, and Orson Welles in a showy part as an opportunistic industrialist in Cuba. Dunaway was a real old-school movie star who was born in the wrong era. Here she gets some priceless reaction shots and makes more than one grand entrance, immaculately dressed (with a monocle and long black boots at one point). Dunaway’s also a damn good actress in the right role, especially pre let’s say 1983. I think people look at “Mommie Dearest” and forget the dream run she had between “Bonnie and Clyde” and that infamous Joan Crawford biopic. Werner gets to play the next most interesting role after von Sydow’s, a well-meaning doctor who nonetheless made himself available to treat Nazi patients, something other passengers on the ship find distasteful. This was Werner’s last film performance, having had issues with alcohol he died about a decade later. A shame, as he was a fine actor. Welles had long devolved into being a tired old ham by this point in his career, but here he shows great guest star presence, as well as some colour and weight to one of the more ambiguous, and malleable Cubans in the film. It’s his best latter-day performance by a mile. It’s a shame that Helmut Griem (who died in 2004) didn’t do very many more English-language films, because in addition to giving a wonderfully odious performance, he shows himself to be perfectly fluent in English and quite handsome.

 

Also terrific are Lee Grant earning an Oscar nomination for playing a somewhat unhinged passenger, and as her embittered husband there’s a very fine Sam Wanamaker. Grant gets the showier role of the two, but Wanamaker is the first one to really lose his shit and is damn good at showing the very obvious psychological pain that these people were carrying with them before the central situation unfolds. Jonathan Pryce and B-movie character actor Paul Koslo are also quite moving as Jewish concentration camp survivors. They’ve clearly been through hell and now they’re on a ship that seems to be going around in circles. Take a look at Koslo’s work in this and tell me why he spent most of his career in exploitation movies (“Vanishing Point”, “Cleopatra Jones”, “Mr. Majestyk” etc). How does something like that happen? Veteran character actor Jose Ferrer meanwhile makes for a shifty, crafty bastard in a memorable cameo. Speaking of shifty, look for Mr. Slugworth himself, Gunter Meisner (who also played Hitler a few times) in a small role as a slimy Nazi spy masquerading as a reporter trying to get information to Griem. Meisner was almost a pre-requisite actor in any depiction of Nazi Germany in the 70s and 80s. Almost rivalling Meisner for sliminess is Michael Constantine as a total piece of crap who has no intention of helping the Jewish cause whatsoever. Ben Gazzara probably fares best of all in the off-shore scenes, next to von Sydow he might just be the most heroic character in the film.

 

It’s not perfect – The Katharine Ross-Maria Schell-Nehemiah Persoff storyline could’ve and should’ve been vetoed, the film certainly would’ve been paced better, and poor Julie Harris gets little to do. All four actors handle their few moments very well, but if you wanted to trim some fat that’s where I’d go to (Ross did earn a Golden Globe for this, so your mileage may differ).

 

More ambitious than most all-star efforts of the time, and mostly comes off very affectingly. You can help but feel so achingly bad for these people who have already gone through so much in some cases and are now stuck in limbo. Definitely worth a look, the epilogue is particularly sad (This was just prior to WWII, for starters). It boggles my mind and hurts my heart and soul to hear of such apathy and cruelty as what went on here. Then again, in recent decades asylum seekers have been met with slightly similar apathy in my own homeland, so perhaps it’s not nearly so mind-boggling after all. The mature screenplay is by David Butler (all-star efforts “Bear Island” and “The Scarlet and the Black”) and Steve Shagan (“Save the Tiger”, “Primal Fear”) from the book by Max Morgan-Witts and Gordon Thomas. Must-see if you’ve never gotten around to it before.

 

Rating: B+