Das Schiff der verlorenen Menschen

Marlene Dietrich is the only woman on board a ship full of sex-starved human detritus! With a plot like that and this director how can you possibly fail?

Quite easily it turns out. This might have clocked in at a satisfactory 80 minutes, but instead the cast for the most part aimlessly mill about for over two hours. Dietrich's role is effectively a sub-plot; she only comes aboard over a third of the way in, and it then takes another half-hour for the crew to find out. She thereafter proves a disappointingly passive heroine as the crew career about in search of her, and her final appearance in the film is in extreme long shot. The big close-up at the end instead goes to the resourceful ship's cook, Vladimir Sokoloff, who has admittedly earned it by giving the film's best performance.