Ship of Fools (film)

The action of the film takes place entirely on board between Veracruz, Mexico, and Bremerhaven, Germany. Most of the scenes take place on the First Class deck, among the upper middle-class passengers there; but the ship is carrying 600 displaced workers, far more than the ship is certified to carry, in squalid conditions in steerage. They are being deported from Cuba back to Spain by the Cuban Machado dictatorship.

Some passengers are happy to be bound for Nazi Germany, some are apprehensive, while others downplay the significance of fascist politics.

The ship's medic, Dr. Schumann, takes a special interest in La Condesa, a countess from Cuba who has an opiate addiction which he accommodates with prescriptions. She is being transported to a Spanish prison on Tenerife. Her sense of doom is contrasted with the doctor's initial determination to fight the forces of oppression, embodied by his insistence that the people in steerage be treated like human beings rather than cargo. The doctor himself has a secret heart condition, and his sympathy for the countess soon evolves into love, though both realise it is a hopeless passion.

Selected passengers are invited to dine each night at the captain's table. There, some are amused and others offended by the anti-Semitic rants of a German businessman named Rieber who – though married – begins an affair with Lizzi. The Jewish Lowenthal is not invited and is seated at a side table with a dwarf named Glocken, and the two bond over their sense of social exclusion. Later a passenger named Freytag is shocked to find himself blackballed from the Captain's Table when Rieber learns Freytag's wife is Jewish and after an angry public outburst he too is re-seated at the side table. Here Lowenthal counsels tactical accommodation to the Nazi views of Rieber saying "Germany has been good for the Jews and the Jews have been good for Germany .... Anyway what are they going to do, kill us all?"

Others aboard include an American couple, David and Jenny; she is infatuated with David who is disconsolate at his lack of success as a socially committed artist and stifled by Jenny's needy dependence. A divorcée, Mary Treadwell, drinks and flirts, on a quest to recapture her lost youth in Paris but rejects the men who take an interest in her as unworthy. Bill Tenny is a former baseball player with a drink problem, angry the way his career never took off. Passengers are entertained nightly by a troupe of flamenco musicians and dancers, whose leader pimps the women in the troupe; other passengers regularly drink themselves to oblivion. One young heir to a fortune loses his virginity to one of the flamenco dancers, who treats him with gentleness.

The ship stops in Spain where the displaced workers leave and La Condesa disembarks, after a painful farewell with the Doctor, under Spanish police escort.

Upon the arrival in Germany, the remaining passengers leave the ship. The doctor dies before the ship reaches Bremerhaven and leaves it in a coffin. At the disembarkation, which seems like a parade, most characters show they will behave as though it is 'business as usual'.

The last to leave the 'Ship of Fools' is Glocken, who speaks directly to camera, as he did in the opening minutes of the film. Glocken asks the film's audience if they are thinking "what has all this to do with us?" (in this case, the passengers): "Nothing" he adds, and leaves into the crowds.

Katherine Anne Porter's novel Ship of Fools was published in 1962.[3] The essayist and short story author's only novel was the culmination of a 20-year-long project that was based on her reminiscences of a 1931 ocean cruise she had taken from Veracruz to Germany.[Note 1][5]

Producer David O. Selznick wanted the film rights but United Artists, which owned the property, demanded $400,000. The novel was adapted for film by Abby Mann. Producer and director Stanley Kramer, who ended up with the film, planned to star Vivien Leigh but was initially unaware of her fragile mental and physical health.[Note 2] The film proved to be her last film and in later recounting her work, he remembered her courage in taking on the difficult role, "She was ill, and the courage to go ahead, the courage to make the film-was almost unbelievable."[5] Leigh's performance was tinged by paranoia and resulted in outbursts that marred her relationship with other actors, although both Simone Signoret and Lee Marvin were sympathetic and understanding.[7] In one unusual instance, she hit Marvin so hard with a spiked shoe, that it marked his face.[8]

At the conclusion of filming, screenwriter Mann reportedly threw a party for almost the entire cast and crew except Gila Golan, whose performance Mann was reputedly not happy with.[9]

Although well received by audiences, Ship of Fools was looked at by some reviewers as a Grand Hotel (1932) afloat, a film which had often been imitated. "Preachy and melodramatic" was another criticism, although the cast was universally praised.[10]

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times saw the film as much more, "Stanley Kramer has fetched a powerful, ironic film ... there is such wealth of reflection upon the human condition in Ship of Fools and so subtle an orchestration of the elements of love and hate, achieved through an expert compression of the novel by Mr. Kramer and his script writer, Abby Mann, that it is really not fair to tag it with the label of any previous film. It has its own quiet distinction in the way it illuminates a theme." He also singled out the work of Oskar Werner.[11] In a similar vein, Variety noted, "Director-producer Stanley Kramer and scenarist Abby Mann have distilled the essence of Katherine Anne Porter's bulky novel in a film that appeals to the intellect and the emotions."[12]

The film was banned in Franco's Spain because of its anti-fascist stance.[13]

Ship of Fools won Academy Awards for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White (Robert Clatworthy, Joseph Kish) and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (Ernest Laszlo). Leigh won the L'Étoile de Cristal for her performance in a leading role.[14][Note 3] Marvin won the 1966 National Board of Review Award for male actors, while Werner received the 1965 New York Film Critics Circle Award.[15]

The film was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Oskar Werner), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Michael Dunn) and Best Actress in a Leading Role (Simone Signoret). In addition, the leading and supporting cast was nominated for British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) and Golden Globe Awards.[15] Other nominations included Best Costume Design, Black-and-White (Bill Thomas), Best Picture and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.[16]

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

• 2005: AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores – Nominated[17]

The film has been issued on VHS, laserdisc and DVD. The film's standalone DVD release is an open matte 1.33:1 transfer with no supplements.[18] The film was later reissued in widescreen with supplements in a Stanley Kramer box set from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.[Note 4] Currently, the film is also available in a budget-priced two-disc, four-movie collection DVD licensed from Sony to Mill Creek Entertainment.[Note 5] All four films are presented in their original theatrical aspect ratios and are anamorphically enhanced. The film has been released on Blu-ray in a double feature pack with the film Lilith via Mill Creek.[19]

• List of American films of 1965

• Ship of Fools at IMDb
• Ship of Fools at the TCM Movie Database
• Ship of Fools at the American Film Institute Catalog
• Ship of Fools at AllMovie
• Ship of Fools at Rotten Tomatoes