Ship Of Fools
Based on the novel by Katherine Ann Porter (which became a national best-seller within days of publication), Ship Of Fools is set in 1933 aboard a luxury liner bound from Mexico to Germany. Among the many passengers are Vivian Leigh (in only her third American film, following her Oscar-winning roles in Gone With the Wind, Best Actress 1940 and A Streetcar Named Desire, Best Actress 1952) as a divorcee desperate for love and lost youth. Also starring are Simone Signoret as a Spanish Noblewoman being deported as a political prisoner, Lee Marvin as an aging, alcoholic ballplayer, and Jose Ferrer as a budding Nazi whose brutishness foreshadows the holocaust to come. Their separate but interlocking stories, beautifully observed by director Stanley Kramer, serve as a brilliant microcosm of a world on the verge of war.
Member Reviews
A compelling script - loaded with star performances - mlpvolt
Set in 1933, the Year the Nazi Party was elected to power in Germany, this movie is like a Robert Altman film before it's time. The word "Nazi" is never spoken, the movie is not even overtly political, but the script explores the vanities and prejudices of the mostly German passengers and crew on their way back to Germany from the Caribbean. With dozens of well-drawn characters, and highly enjoyable performances the film draws a thumbnail sketch of the human factors that lead to great strife - vanity, depression, nationalism, selfishness, dishonesty with others and ourselves, misplaced priorities, lust, ignorance and intellectual narcissism.
By turns touching, wise, comic and tragic, the Director Stanley Kramer's social conscience shines through without resorting to sentimentality, cliches or tiring existential moodiness.
Any Stanley Kramer directed movie is well worth watching, and this one is no exception. Compare with Fellini's "La Dolche Vita" and Altman's "Short Cuts"
Member Reviews
Read All...
A compelling script - loaded with star performances - mlpvolt
Set in 1933, the Year the Nazi Party was elected to power in Germany, this movie is like a Robert Altman film before it's time. The word "Nazi" is never spoken, the movie is not even overtly political, but the script explores the vanities and prejudices of ...