Shipwreck of souls
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Shipwreck of souls |
| Original title | Souls at Sea |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1937 |
| length | 92 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Henry Hathaway |
| script |
Grover Jones Dale Van Every |
| production | Henry Hathaway Grover Jones Adolph Zukor |
| music |
William Franke Harling Milan Roder John Leipold |
| camera |
Charles Lang Merritt B. Gerstad |
| cut | Ellsworth Hoagland |
| occupation | |
| |
Shipwreck of Souls is a 1937 American adventure film directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Gary Cooper and George Raft .
action
The year 1842: Michael “Nuggin” Taylor is convicted by a court because he saved the lives of more than a dozen people in a shipwreck, but accepted the deaths of far more people with approval. a. when he pushed her out of the overcrowded single lifeboat. When Nuggin is led out of the room, the British Barton Woodley appears before the judge and asks that the Queen of England investigate the background of Nuggins:
Nuggin is hired to be a shipwright on a slave ship with his friend Powdah. When the slaves pull the bestial captain below deck and seriously injure him in the process, the dying captain gives Nuggin and Powdah instructions on how to steer the ship further. Although slavery is officially abolished, slaves are illegally brought to America under a foreign flag. The British Navy, in turn, is actively taking action against the slave ships and patrolling the waters. Nuggin suggests deviating from the deceased captain's course and staying in the immediate vicinity of a patrol ship, so that one will never become suspicious. The innocent Powdah agrees and a little later the ship is in the hands of the English. Powdah and Nuggin are brought to Liverpool . The slaves have disappeared and Nuggin states that he released them during a stopover. The British Lieutenant Stanley Tarryton knows that the captain must have given instructions for him before his death, as he is secretly involved in the slave trade. He questions nuggin. He in turn now knows that Stanley is wrong.
Nuggin's case raises questions among the British: he was employed several times as a sailor on slave ships that never reached their destination. Sometimes a fire broke out on deck, sometimes the ship leaked. The slaves could always escape. Barton Woodley realizes that Nuggin is an opponent of slavery and hires him for England: As a publicly known supporter of slavery, he is supposed to manipulate the routes of the slave ships covertly and thus hand them over to the British. Nuggins agrees. He goes on board the ship William Brown with Powdah . Here he meets a woman again who had already caught his eye on land in Liverpool: the young Margaret is the sister of Stanley Tarryton, who in turn wants to destroy the beginning relationship between Nuggin and Margaret with all his might. Powdah, meanwhile, has fallen in love with the former maid Babsie and tries clumsily to woo her.
Nuggin knows that Stanley wants to take the ship to a layover where the slaves are supposed to go on board. To protect Margaret, he makes it clear to Stanley that he should skip this stop. Stanley realizes that his cover has come to light. A girl's carelessness causes a fire to break out on board, which soon spreads to large parts of the ship. After an explosion on board, water seeps into the ship and Babsie dies seriously injured in Powdah's arms. Stanley had broken into Nuggin's cabin at the time of the accident and threatened him with a pistol. After the explosion, Nuggin was able to overwhelm him. He brings Margaret on deck and after the death of the captain tries to bring order to the panicked people. He secures the only dinghy and lets people get on quietly, but is knocked down by the madman Stanley. It comes to a duel, at the end of which Stanley is killed. Nuggin has filled up the dinghy, put Margaret, who is defending herself in horror, and wants to get Powdah to be the last to get on, but he prefers to die with Babsie. Powdah hits Nuggin and passes out, and has him carried into the boat. Now all the passengers still on board the sinking ship storm the dinghy, which almost capsizes. When Nuggin wakes up, he pushes some of the people into the water so that the rest can safely be brought ashore.
Barton Woodley concludes that after rescuing the passengers, Nuggin's efforts and his reports could bring much of the African slave trade to a standstill. He thanks Nuggin in the courtroom on behalf of the Queen for his commitment. The court decides on application that the process will be reopened. Margaret, who was present at the hearing, now also knows why Nuggin had to act like this, and a reconciliation ensues.
production
Shipwreck of Souls is loosely based on a true story from 1841. The ship William Brown sank after it hit an iceberg. One of the two dinghies was so overloaded that it threatened to capsize, whereupon parts of the crew pushed 16 passengers off board in order to save the rest. One of the crew members, Alexander Holmes, was then tried for murder and was eventually sentenced to six months' imprisonment and a $ 20 fine for manslaughter. The films Fear Has a Thousand Names (1957) and the American television film The Last Survivors (1975) also addressed the subject.
Shipwreck of Souls was created at Paramount Studios and premiered on August 9, 1937 in New York City . It ran for the first time in Germany on July 13, 1939 and was performed again in Germany on September 4, 1953.
criticism
For the film-dienst , Shipwreck of the Souls was a "routinely staged, largely exciting adventure film that, however, neglects the discussion of the moral conflict in favor of action scenes."
Der Spiegel called the film a "Ocean Drama (1937) with Gary Cooper, a trivial assembly-line work by Henry Hathaway."
Awards
At the 1938 Academy Awards , Shipwreck of Souls was nominated for three Academy Awards, but couldn't win any of the awards:
- Hal Walker - Best assistant director
- Hans Dreier , Roland Anderson - Best Production Design
- Boris Morros - Best Score
Web links
- Souls at Sea in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cf. United States v. Holmes. Circuit Court, ED Pennsylvania. 26 F.Cas. 360, 1842 ( Memento of the original from April 18, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ↑ Shipwreck of Souls. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ These Weeks on TV: Shipwreck of Souls . In: Der Spiegel , No. 45, 1979, p. 287.
