BY FRED BLOSSER
“Souls
at Sea†(1937) is old-school Hollywood at its best -- beautifully directed by
Henry Hathaway, great performances by Gary Cooper, George Raft, and Frances
Dee, wonderful support from a first-rate cast of character actors, and fine
Paramount production values. The script
casts a wide net over at least six genres, including maritime adventure, disaster saga, love story, spy
thriller, costume drama, and courtroom mystery. Imagine “Amistad†(1997), “Titanic†(1997), and “Master and Commander:
The Far Side of the World†(2003) combined, with a little music and comedy
added in. It sounds like it should be a
mess, but a strong script by old pros Grover Jones and Dale Van Every pulls it
all together seamlessly.
Michael
“Nuggin†Taylor (Cooper), an American seaman and sometimes ship’s officer,
faces charges of murder in a Boston courtroom in 1842 in the deaths of 18
fellow passengers during the sinking of the transatlantic brig William
Brown. Taylor is accused of
commandeering a lifeboat, ejecting other passengers and leaving them to drown,
and killing a fellow traveler, British naval Lt. Tarryton, with whom he had
been on strained terms (Henry Wilcoxon). Taylor refuses to speak in his own defense, and his blemished reputation
as a career slaver seems to substantiate the prosecution’s depiction of a
coward and opportunist. The few survivors
assembled in the courtroom plead on Taylor’s behalf, describing a different
sort of man, but there is one dissenting hold-out among them. Tarryton’s embittered sister Margaret (Dee)
supports the prosecution, even though she was one of the people Taylor
rescued. The jury returns a guilty
verdict, and then, as Taylor is led away, a British government official (George
Zucco) rushes into the courtroom and reveals the true story.
The
sadly underrated Henry Hathaway is best remembered now as a director of Westerns
who, like his contemporary John Ford, was known for bullying good performances
out of his casts. “Souls at Sea,†like
his earlier Paramount classic with Cooper, “Lives of a Bengal Lancer†(1935),
works perfectly fine as an action drama, but Hathaway also invests it with
great sensitivity in romantic scenes between Cooper and Dee, and between George
Raft as Taylor’s friend Powdah and Olympe Bradna as a winsome lady’s maid who
seeks a new start in America. Cooper and
Raft also click as mismatched but loyal buddies, Cooper crossing the frame with
a long-legged outdoorsman’s walk, Raft matching him with a subdued dancer’s
swagger. The climactic scenes
dramatizing the explosion and sinking of the doomed ship use state-of-the-art
1930s FX, chiefly miniatures and special sets simulating the burning, tilted
ship’s deck. Younger fans accustomed to
CGI may not be impressed, but these old-time FX have their own charm for us
older viewers.
The Universal Studios
Home Entertainment/TCM Vault Collection DVD is a manufactured-on-demand
DVD-R. There’s no chapter menu and no
extras, but the 1.33:1 full frame transfer is acceptable.
Available through most major on-line retailers.