Alec 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.
Review of Ship of Fools
