Critics Review of John Wayne Movie Sea Chase
John Wayne plays a German sea captain in a film that goes out of its way to create a favorable image of our one-time enemy, with hardly a Nazi flag or fifty-fifty a German accent in sight. Wayne and his co-star Lana Turner are as Teutonic as Blondie and Dagwood, yet the story works as basic risk – we like the charismatic star, and the body of water chase format guarantees extra interest.
The Bounding main Chase
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1955 / Color / 2:55 widescreen / 117 min. / Street Date July xi, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: John Wayne, Lana Turner, David Farrar, Lyle Bettger, Tab Hunter, James Arness, Richard Davalos, John Qualen, Paul Fix, Alan Hale Jr., Peter Whitney, Claude Akins, John Doucette, Tudor Owen, Adam Williams.
Cinematography: William Clothier
Flick Editors: William Ziegler, Owen Marks
Original Music: Roy Webb
Written by James Warner Bellah, John Twist from a novel by Andrew Geer
Produced and Directed by John Farrow
A couple of weeks ago I waded into the 'fifties John Wayne action melodrama Blood Aisle, in which Wayne's all-purpose generic hero smuggles a boatload of villagers out of communist Communist china. Made the same year, the ameliorate-produced The Sea Chase is well-nigh another goal-oriented quest on the open sea. This time out Wayne is a German merchant captain defenseless in an English port at the outset of WW2. Rather than be interned for the elapsing, he tries to take his ship back to Frg, halfway around the globe. Unlike Blood Alley this is primarily a studio bear witness, with the taskmaster manager John Farrow producing equally well. A real transport was filmed on location in Hawaii and the Canadian Navy cooperated for some exciting warship footage.
The story is sourced from fiction based on similar true events. At the outset of hostilities England could practice piddling to support their annunciation of war. Symbolic propaganda took the place of bodily battles. Centrality and Allied agents clashed in ways small and big in neutral waters and neutral ports, in actions that inverse the confront of espionage. The Ocean Chase isn't interested in this backdrop for its ain sake. It instead sets up another 'cattle drive' story to demonstrate John Wayne'southward seemingly unbeatable star ability. He was grossly miscast at present and then, yet rarely made a movie that audiences didn't cover: not even the ludicrous The Conqueror, where he plays a drawling Mongol warrior named Temujin, could injure his appeal.
German Helm Karl Erlich (Wayne) and his tramp steamer the Ergenstrasse are stuck in the port of Sydney without much in the fashion of fuel or provisions. Everybody expects state of war to be declared at any moment, including Karl's friend, British Navy Commander Jeff Napier (David Farrar of Black Narcissus). Every bit Sydney is a commonwealth port the send will be interned for the elapsing. Erlich instead sneaks out, simply not before taking on an unexpected passenger. Elsa Keller (Lana Turner) is a German spy in danger of firsthand arrest; Jeff happens to exist 1 of the enemy officers she has seduced. As the Ergenstrasse is old and slow, Karl can avoid the pursuing British Navy only past taking an unlikely route E across the Pacific. Both Karl and Jeff consider this a legit wartime chase until Karl is betrayed past his own Chief Officer Kirchner (Lyle Bettger), an agog Nazi intelligence agent. When the Ergenstrasse stops at a maritime emergency outpost on a remote Southern isle, Kirchner takes it upon himself to murder three innocent shipwreck victims. This makes Jeff Napier all the more eager to grab the Ergenstrasse and hang its crew, including Erlich. Karl and his resourceful engineer Schmitt (John Qualen) must fire everything not nailed downward, including some of the lifeboats, to get the send to a lonely Pacific island, Pom Pom Galley. In that location they spend many days feverishly cutting firewood to burn down in lieu of coal. The shame of Kirchner's killings weighs heavily on Erlich's conscience. The Ergenstrasse is already making earth headlines, with Nazi Frg spreading a loathsome 'fake news' counter-story asserting that the English claims of murders are lies.
Some stories are but un-killable, and although John Wayne made plenty of turkeys he almost always chose vehicles suitable for his range of characters. That The Bounding main Hunt works at all is a miracle. Wayne doesn't seem even a bit German language, especially with the Western twang in his voice. The producers give his sailors coiffure cuts and dye their pilus, merely the ship isn't very 'German' either. Even the Nazi consuls don't take accents, and the Nazi villain played past perennial baddie Lyle Bettger behaves more like one of the actor's familiar gangster or cowboy bad guys. No Nazi flags are shown flying. Nosotros see just one swastika near the stop, when Erlich/Wayne throws a flag to the floor. We're told that the original book's Erlich was less of a conventional hero, and more than along the lines of the High german flyer played by Hardy Kruger in the fascinating The One that Got Abroad, who keeps escaping no matter how advisedly he'south guarded, and eventually rejoins the Luftwaffe. The British movie approaches its subject with a great sense of irony, respecting the pluck of the German airplane pilot who just wouldn't requite up.
John Wayne couldn't play such a character, and then by strict definition The Ocean Chase should be terminally miscast. But this is first and foremost a Wayne picture show. Everything is shifted to the star's requirements much the same way that a major role in a well-known musical might be altered to fit a powerful star like Barbra Streisand. The Body of water Chase was filmed because Wayne is in information technology, not the other way around. In other words, the sheer power of Hollywood's influence is such that even a cursory alignment with historical reality isn't necessary. Because it's John Wayne, dummy.
The handsome CinemaScope product puts Erlich's tramp steamer in the background of many shots ashore, requiring a model only for night scenes in stormy seas. The bear witness doesn't overdo the rear-projection — we're convinced that Lana Turner was forth for the ride, and not only limited to scenes picked up on a Warners' sound stage. John Farrow's fine visual direction also helps the states believe that the Ergenstrasse has slipped South into Antarctic waters and and so steamed to the fictional Polynesian island chosen Pom Pom Galley. After reaching the Chilean port of Valparaiso, the send leaps nigh of the way around the globe to the North Body of water, where a British trap awaits. The story's biggest irony is the draconian way the Nazis use the Ergenstrasse. They generate exhibitionistic propaganda when Erlich proves that the British Navy doesn't entirely rule the waves. And so Berlin gives away the transport's position, sacrificing information technology equally a decoy. Captain Erlich had been busted from a major command for his anti-Nazi views, and isn't actually welcome dorsum home.
John Wayne had no problems with this 'my country correct or wrong' bulletin. We're asked to admire Erlich for beingness true to his homeland even when his homeland has been taken over by political gangsters set on evil plans. The Sea Chase is yet another '50s film seemingly intent on fine tuning public attitudes toward foreign policy. Equally shortly as the U.S. took sides with West Deutschland against the Soviets, film stories warning of new Fascist threats tapered off. Other movies reassured us that the Germans were at present our friends and that the Nazi fanatics were isolated rotten apples and all-time forgotten. A good antidote to this Hollywood political amnesia is René Clément's amazing Les Maudits (The Damned), about the try of a pack of Nazi renegades and boyfriend travelers to escape to Due south America in a U-Boat. A more than relevant The Sea Hunt would star Lyle Bettger as Captain Erlich, and make him a thing-of-fact patriot, not a Nazi maniac. Of course, who would produce an expensive Hollywood picture like that when John Wayne guarantees success? I would like to have seen a fine thespian Bettger for once get a sympathetic role.
Lana Turner seems fifty-fifty less High german than Wayne, less a computing Nordic Mata Hari than only another misunderstood swish dame. Elsa has been given a notorious past, in this case hopping in the sack with every loose-lipped English language officer she can find. But nosotros're assured that she's really a bully gal, and is redeemed by Erlich's honest patriotic integrity. Critics complained that Wayne and Turner'due south scenes lack romantic estrus. This unabridged aspect of the picture show is rather downplayed – Elsa appears to be 'turned on' by Captain Erlich's sterling ideals. When Wayne kisses Turner he just buries his face into her neck, as if avoiding the lips that Johnny Stompanato had kissed. Most of the dialogue is non bad for this level of filmmaking, but we merely don't understand how anybody could permit John Wayne to smile at Lana Turner and say, "Y'all know, y'all're really beautiful when yous're angry."
English language actor David Farrar has the nothing role of the (rather impaired) English language officer who slaps Erlich in front of the Chilean press, accusing his onetime friend of piracy and murder. Farrar was fantabulous as the unhappy flop disposal skilful in the superior Archers flick The Small Back Room, only sensitivity isn't needed here. Every time we cut back to the pursuing British transport, Roy Webb'south score reminds us that Britannia Rules the Waves. Nosotros see some casual meet 'north' greet on deck: 'oh hullo there, you know, mayhap nosotros ought to act on your intuition to become right to that island you said Erlich mentioned. Jolly skillful. Come across you on the span.' Actually, those are the only scenes that remind u.s.a. that a hunt is underway. Readers of the original Geer book report that the (mayhap truthful) existent story was better than fiction. The actual fugitive German ship erected makeshift sails when its fuel ran out. Kon-Tiki in opposite!
The supporting cast is a major draw. Wayne couldn't fit in Ward Bail, but he has other old pals forth for the ride, doing fine piece of work under John Farrow'south watching eye: John Qualen, Paul Fix, James Arness. The rest of the cast is a who's who of fifties names. Warners are conspicuously pushing its young contract faces Tab Hunter and Richard Davalos. Arness, Hunter and Davalos go the showiest parts, while Claude Akins, Peter Whitney, Alan Hale Jr. and John Doucette fill in nicely.
The Body of water Chase ends rather abruptly. 1 of the reasons the Ergenstrasse gets equally far as it does is that Jeff Napier's ship has to break off its pursuit to support the cornering of the Graf Spee 'round Uruguay manner. [There'due south a newish German Blu-ray of the Archers' epic about that see that I'll be reviewing soon.] The bodily end of John Wayne's voyage to nowhere is rather sketchy. The script implies a 'Twilight of the Gods' climax but the movie's final cut softens the finish considerably. Equally a period drama John Farrow's show is devoid of historical feeling or real insight, only one must admit that star-power and large screen adventure pull it through. I liked information technology from the commencement fourth dimension I saw it on the neighbour's new colour Television receiver in 1963 or so, on a circular flick tube where the colour was generally orangish. When James Arness's sailor screws upwards and chops Claude Akins' leg with a woodsman's axe, we hear an attenuated Wilhelm Scream. The scene became a major discussion topic for the next solar day's talk on the 3rd-course playground.
The Warner Archive Collection Blu-ray of The Sea Chase is a terrific scan of a fine film element. With few opticals needed, all those shots of ships play quite well on the extra-wide screen. William Clothier kept the 'scope lens well adapted, as I see no 'CinemaScope Mumps' or uneven field effects, even on pans — no 'warp-O-scope,' as Hoyt Yeatman used to say. A lot of this is surely due to John Farrow'south sensible direction, which finds ways to play scenes without resorting to standard intercutting of masters and close-ups. They somehow even avoid making the transport's cabin interiors look too roomy, although we are limited to the Captain's adequately spacious quarters.
Warners' poster fine art on the disc jacket is not very compelling, and the vintage illustration makes Lana Turner look more like Nicole Kidman. The disc'southward sole actress is a trailer with poor color, a proficient reminder of how improved the new transfer is. The enjoyment of a flick can be a simple pleasure. A western tin can be relaxing simply to lookout people riding horses in pretty scenery, and it can be pleasant only to watch a movie about people on a boat going somewhere. And John Wayne, bless him, is skillful visitor.
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
The Bounding main Chase
Blu-ray rates:
Movie: Good +/-
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent (2-aqueduct stereo)
Supplements: trailer
Deaf and Hearing Impaired Friendly? YES ; Subtitles: English (feature but)
Packaging: Keep instance
Reviewed: July sixteen, 2017
(5468sea)
Terminal product for this review was provided complimentary past The Warner Archive Collection.
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