The Ghost Ship (1943)

Director:

Mark Robson

Writers:

Donald Henderson Clarke (screenplay)
Leo Mittler (story)

Release Date:

27 July 1944 (Australia)

Genre:

Drama | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

MYSTERY TERROR! (original print ad - all caps)

Plot:

Tom Merriam signs on the ship Altair as third officer under Captain Stone. At first things look good...

Plot Keywords:

Ship | Captain | Authority | Murder | Merchant Marine

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Richard Dix	...	Capt. Will Stone
Russell Wade	...	Tom Merriam, 3rd Officer
Edith Barrett	...	Ellen Roberts
Ben Bard	...	First Officer Bowns
Edmund Glover	...	Jacob 'Sparks' Winslow, Radioman

Also Known As:

Ghost Ship (USA) (poster title)

Runtime:

69 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | German

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

USA:TV-PG | UK:A (original rating) (passed with cuts) | Finland:K-16 (1986) | Sweden:15 | USA:Approved (PCA #9567) | Spain:13

Company:

RKO Radio Pictures

Trivia:

RKO had built an expensive ship set for their 1938 production Pacific Liner (1939). Val Lewton was given instructions to come up with a film that could use the still existing set.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: One shot of the boat traveling toward camera shows the name of the boat on the bow is backwards. The backwards name reads Venture, indicating it's a shot reused from King Kong (1933) that has been horizontally flipped.

Quotes:

Captain Will Stone: You know, there are some captains who would hold this against you.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows (2007) (TV)

A Lesser Known Lewton Production That is Brilliant

I had never heard of this Val Lewton production till it recently showed up on television. Yet, as directed by Mark Robson, it is one of Lewton's very best.

Russell Wade as the young sailor who is menaced by mentally off-balance captain Richard Dix is handsome and very persuasive. What happened to this actor? I had never heard of him before, either.

The movie has a marvelously eerie, foreboding quality that is maintained throughout, from the blind soothsayer we see before Tom Merriam (Wade) boards the ship, through the sea chanteys, Caribbean songs, the heroic mute sailor.

I generally shy away from all-male casts but in this case, the claustrophobic nature of the plot would have been maintained better had it not been "opened out," albeit briefly, with the scene onshore involving the third billed admirer of Dix.

(Her friend, whom we see greeting Wade at the end in silhouette, is a plot device to imply a happy ending. This is OK because the damage to our nerves has already been done. Dix has already had several of his crew killed and has almost succeeded in doing away with Wade.)