Rating: 
Summary: Bogart's Finest Role
Review: Some people might give me an argument on that, saying no, Rick in "Casablanca" or Charlie in "The African Queen", but this, Captain Queeg in "The Caine Mutiny" is the real departure and the real out-on-a-limb performance of a lifetime. Bogart plays a mentally unstable ship captain during WW2 whose crew finally rises up in mutiny against him when they disagree with his orders during a typhoon. The latter part of the movie is about the court martial of the first mate, played by Van Johnson. Van had been talked into the mutiny by slimeball Fred MacMurray, who withdraws his support whenever things get rough. Jose Ferrer is the lawyer who defends Van and has to take apart Bogart limb by limb on the witness stand. One of my favorite scenes is when Van is in the witness box, and has to admit his knowledge of psychology is less than adequate, so that his decision to take the ship gets more and more unfounded. But of course, the highlight is when Bogart begins to ramble about strawberries while twirling about ball berrings in his palm--that's just so pathetic, but so wonderfully executed.
Rating:
Summary: Intrigue, manipulation and hard choices. A great film!
Review: The 1954 classic is about a naval captain who shows signs of mental instability and the resultant actions of the men in his command. It's not as simple as that, however. The characters are the key to the story, each one developing in front of our eyes into complex individuals with moral dilemmas to confront. There is Humphrey Bogart, cast a Captain Queeg whose decisions are no longer respected by his men. There's Fred MacMurray, cast as a smart and manipulative lieutenant. There's Van Johnson, cast as the lieutenant on whose shoulders the responsibility falls. There's Robert Francis, the young ensign whose perceptions change in front of our eyes. And then there is Jose Ferrer, cast as the attorney who defends Van Johnson when he is put on trial for mutiny. Put them all together in a fast paced script with enough twists and turns, and I couldn't take my eyes off the screen.The special effects, of course, are nothing like they are today. But they were certainly enough. I wasn't thinking about the special effects as I watched the film. I just simply felt I was on that ship. I wasn't thinking about the actors' performances either. Instead, I was so totally involved with the story that I felt I was actually in the skin of each of the characters. Just like real life, the situations were never crystal clear and each choice that was made opened up new challenges. These were challenging roles for all the actors and they rose to the occasion magnificently. I'll never forget the twitch in Humphrey Bogart's cheek or the way the lighting captured the white of his eyeballs. I'll long remember Fred MacMurray's speculations and the kind of choice Van Johnson had to make. Robert Francis was good, but not as great as his co-stars, and his role was hampered by a silly romance. This was a strong film, though, and this small diversion didn't matter at all. Even though this film was about the military, I can't classify it as a war film. Here, there was no enemy but the men themselves and the choices they made. It's a wonderful theme and has the classic universality to it that can adopt the lessons it teaches to a wide variety of situations. I give it one of my highest recommendations. Don't miss it!
Rating: 
Summary: "Caine Mutiny" Offers Excellent Snapshot of Wouk's Book
Review: The all-star cast of "The Caine Mutiny" shines and makes for excellent drama. Bogart sheds the tough guy image and convinces us with maniacal stares and nervous twitches that he IS Captain Queeg. Fred McMurray plays Keefer with his usual charm, which makes his character all the more tragic. Van Johnson is genuine as the man in the middle who has to balance duty and loyalty as Lt. Maryk (see also his portrayal of Holley in "Battleground"). Two new stars who do not shine are Robert Francis as Ensign Willie Kieth and May Wynn. Francis is convincing when he's on board the Caine, but his romantic scenes seem forced and May Wynn merely adds a pretty face. "The Caine Mutiny" is a good movie, but the changes in plot line and the omitted exposition give it weak roots. Enjoy the movie for the great acting, then enjoy the book for an even greater story.
Rating:
Summary: "Caine Mutiny" Offers Excellent Snapshot of Wouk's Book
Review: The all-star cast of "The Caine Mutiny" shines and makes for excellent drama. Bogart sheds the tough guy image and convinces us with maniacal stares and nervous twitches that he IS Captain Queeg. Fred McMurray plays Keefer with his usual charm, which makes his character all the more tragic. Van Johnson is genuine as the man in the middle who has to balance duty and loyalty as Lt. Maryk (see also his portrayal of Holley in "Battleground"). Two new stars who do not shine are Robert Francis as Ensign Willie Kieth and May Wynn. Francis is convincing when he's on board the Caine, but his romantic scenes seem forced and May Wynn merely adds a pretty face. "The Caine Mutiny" is a good movie, but the changes in plot line and the omitted exposition give it weak roots. Enjoy the movie for the great acting, then enjoy the book for an even greater story.
Rating:
Summary: Great movie, lousy DVD
Review: The Caine Mutiny is a great film and featurea one of the best performance of Humphrey Bogart's life. That's high praise considering the quality evident in his body of work but he really delivers the goods in The Caine Mutiny. The film benefits from other strong perfomrances as well. Jose Ferrer, Van Johnson, Fred MacMurray, and others all rise to the level of the unusally intelligent script. The result is a fancinating character study that I would recommend to anyone. As good as the movie is, however, the transfer to DVD is about the worst I've ever seen. The moment the movie started, I was stunned by how much noise was evident. I wasn't looking for it or analyzing the picture, it jumped out because it was so extreme. Every face, every object, every thing was literally swimming with digital noise. And the sound is as bad or worse. No effort was made to re-master the soundtrack to even rudimentary surround sound making this the first movie I've seen in years to be presented in basic stereo. In addition, the sound is flat throughout, with even big explosions lacking punch. The Caine Mutiny is a classic film and deserves much better treatment from the studio. As a movie, I would give it 5 stars but I deduct one for the extraordinarily poor picture and sound quality of the DVD.
Rating:
Summary: The captain is always right?
Review: The Caine Mutiny is a pretty good adaptation of the novel. Bogart has a memorable role cast against type Captain Queeg. Queeg leads the USS Caine in World War Two in the Pacific. Unfortunately, Queeg is a neurotic and incompetent man who frequently makes mistakes while harrassing his crew over the smallest things. When the crew decides to relieve him of his command during a fierce storm, they are charged with mutiny. If convicted, they will be hanged. The Caine Mutiny is a very well made film. The characters are interesting and the morality of mutiny and duty is thought provoking. However, I found the film's politics to be very rightest. The message of the film seems to be that it is better for a ship and her crew to be destroyed rather than rebel against an incompetent captain. The crew relieve Queeg quite gently with the first officer saying he is sorry to have to do this. In response, the crew is arrested and sentenced to hang. Were the rules really this strict in World War Two? Apparently, otherwise this film probably couldn't have been made. Nevertheless, it makes me glad I wasn't around during that time. Another problem I had with the film is the twist ending. Although very well done and in the context of the film, I didn't like its message. It seems to drive home the message that it is never the captains's fault and that it must always be the crew's, and that if the captain goes nuts then it is the crew's fault for not being supportive enough.
Rating:
Summary: All time classic that still rings true!
Review: THE CAINE MUTINY is one of the greatest... While the film has never done the book justice, it is a great adaptation to film. As a young naval officer I read the book while onboard a ship and the situations that were presented young Ensign Keith and the descriptions of Lieutenant Commander Queeg can still be witnessed in our Navy of today.
I almost didn't get this disk after reading the sound quality was terrible. To those raters I suggest that if they were to buy the VHS tape (which I have had for years) they would find the sound quality to be the same. I watched a freinds copy of the DVD version and enjoyed it just as much as I did with the VHS tape. I agree they could have done something about it, but the film still maintains it wonderful qualities and deep impact on the facts of life that face many young officers at sea today.
Rating:
Summary: Film acting simply doesn't get better than this
Review: THE CAINE MUTINY remains one of the finest films ever made about the Navy. It was also one the U.S. Navy had a complex relationship with. On the one hand, the navy provided considerable access to naval vessels. Significant scenes were shot on at least three: the destroyer-mine sweeper used to represent the Caine, a light cruiser at the very end, and the U.S.S. Kearsarge, which represented Halsey's flag ship the U.S.S. Enterprise, though he later moved to the U.S.S. Missouri. Despite this remarkable cooperation, the Navy very nearly withheld its approval for the film. It was afraid that the public might imagine that the story represented actual events or that it might be imagined that there had been a mutiny aboard some ship. Only after the filmmakers agree to begin the film with a historical disclaimer did they approve.
More than anything, despite the presence of ships, the film is mainly a showcase for great acting. The quality of the cast simply can't be exaggerated. There are a host of stellar performances, and they even have such future stars as Lee Marvin in throwaway parts. Humphrey Bogart absolutely dominates the screen with one of the finest performances of his career. Most of the fan and critic polls I have seen over the years of the greatest movie stars of all time invariably place Bogart in the number one spot, and when you see him in this role, and then realize that he has 7 or 8 roles just as great, it is easy to see why. He is such a forceful presence that one would imagine that he wouldn't have been capable of a variety of roles, yet you contrast this film with THE MALTESE FALCON and THE AFRICAN QUEEN, and you realize that he had a capacity to play a surprisingly wide range of roles. Lt. Commander Queeg lacks almost all of the qualities of Rick in CASABLANCA, and possesses a host of lamentable ones as well. The scene in which Queeg cowardly has the U.S.S. Caine quickly outrun the landing crafts it is assigned to protect and then retreat to safety as fast as possible is made all the worse by the courage his characters in other films display. Queeg's final crack up on the witness stand at Lt. Maryk's court martial is justifiably famous, and is among the great scenes in cinema. It is now impossible for any character in any film to play with a pair of steel balls and not think of Bogart.
The rest of the cast is hardly shamed by Bogart. Van Johnson, as the loyal, enormously capable, conscientious Lt. Maryk is superb. (This is, by the way, the only film in which the make up department didn't cover the quite large scars on his forehead that he suffered over a decade earlier in a serious car wreck, which resulted in a steel plate being placed in his forehead.) Robert Francis, who had a promising career cut short at the age of 25 in a plane crash he suffered a year after this film, is solid as the young, idealistic Ensign Keith (though the parallels between his hesitancy to stand up to his mother and marry the woman he loves and his hesitancy to stand up to his commanders isn't developed as much as it is implied) holds his own against stiff competition. Fred MacMurray, who spent his entire career bouncing between utterly lovable and absolutely reprehensible characters, here takes the latter course as the complex, spineless Lt. Keefer. His character adds a delicious degree of ambiguity to the film. Jerry Paris, who would later play Rob and Laura Petrie's friend in THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW, is excellent as the ship's other junior ensign. Tom Tully managed an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor in his stellar performance as Lt. Commander DeVriess, the first commander of the Caine. Jose Ferrer (who is, by the way, George Clooney's uncle by marriage), whose screen roles never seemed to come up to the level of his talent, is outstanding in his small but memorable role as the mutineers' defense attorney.
On a minor note, I very much enjoyed the very unusual location scene in Yosemite National Park. Although we take location shots for granted today, Hollywood in the thirties, forties, and fifties was only very slowly willing to undertake location shots. It is hard today to realize how radical it was for directors like John Huston (who shot parts of THE TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE in Mexico and THE AFRICAN QUEEN in Africa) or John Ford (who shot extensively in Arizona for his Westerns and in Ireland for THE QUIET MAN) to shoot on location. The general preference was to build sets on Hollywood backlots. It is so unusual to see location shots that no sound film was shot on location in Chicago (many films were made at the old Essanay Studios in Chicago in the teens and twenties) until the superb Jimmy Stewart CALL NORTHSIDE 777. The scenes in this one, therefore, set in Yosemite are pretty unique.
Rating:
Summary: Dialogue crisp enough to draw blood
Review: The Caine Mutiny's use of language is an example to inspire screenwriters and directors. Epigrammic, witty, snide, terse, and precise -- this is the way that we all wish that we could talk. Seemingly affable Lt. Fred MacMurray is the very devil as the inspiration of (but not the fall-guy for) the revolt against stress-traumatized Navy captain Humphrey Bogart. The underrated Van Johnson is perfect as the devoted exec who must bear responsibility for the mutiny. Jose Ferrer steals the movie with his tough, tightly-wound performance as the defense lawyer whose success leads him only into regret.
Rating:
Summary: "Ah but the strawberries - that's where I had them..."
Review: The crew of the USS Caine resents Captain Queeg, who places the blame for a series of blunders and petty infractions on the crew. Such instances include cutting their own target tow-line while Queeg berates a crewman for having his shirt untucked, and later and most famously, interrogating the officers for the apparent stealing of some strawberries. The mutiny results when, in a life-threatening storm, Queeq freezes up and does not give the order that would save the ship. At that point he is relieved of command by Van Johnson. Later at the court-marshall Johnson is defended by Mel Ferrer and prosecuted by EG Marshall. But was Queeq torpedoed by the crew with insubordination and lack of respect, or did Queeq go off the deep end? Queeg's paranoia comes out in full force, complete with marbles. Based on Herman Wouk's best-selling, Pulitzer-winning novel, the movie arguably has Bogart's best performance which was one of seven oscar nominations. Look for Claude Akins and Lee Marvin in small roles. Only the unnecessary love-story between a new ensign and his girlfriend detracts from the otherwise intriguing story.
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