The Caine was her destiny

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Movie
German title The Caine was her destiny
Original title The Caine Mutiny
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1954
length 119 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Edward Dmytryk
script Stanley Roberts
(based on the novel by
Herman Wouk )
production Stanley Kramer
for Columbia Pictures
music Max Steiner
camera Franz Planner
cut Henry Batista ,
William A. Lyon
occupation
synchronization

The Caine was her fate (original title: The Caine Mutiny , literal translation: The Caine Mutiny ) is an American war film by Edward Dmytryk based on the award-winning novel of the same name by Herman Wouk . The main characters are Humphrey Bogart , José Ferrer , Van Johnson , Fred MacMurray and Robert Francis .

There is a German film adaptation from 1959, director Hanns Farenburg with Robert Meyn, Hans Paetsch, Josef Dahmen and others. a.

action

During the Second World War takes Lieutenant Commander Philip F. Queeg command of the American fast minesweeping destroyer U.SS Caine (DMS 18), the young Marine Academy graduates on the Ensign has been Willie Seward Keith reassigned. On the old, rather neglected after a long service and from the previous commander Lt.Comdr. DeVriess' very loosely run ship immediately shows Queeg a tough and incompetent regiment that the crew soon turns against him. The men therefore refuse to ask for help when he realizes that he has made mistakes. The cynical oriented lieutenant and writer Tom Keefer intrigued since the takeover against the commanders , while the first officer Lt. Steve Maryk initially defended his irrational behavior.

In the course of time, however, Maryk also realizes that Queeg rides around on regulations in a paranoid manner and harasses the officers as well as the crew: Queeg suspects them of working against him, imposes draconian penalties for minor things and becomes increasingly unpredictable. When he finally steers the Caine into a typhoon (in the book it is Typhoon Cobra ) and endangers the lives of everyone on board because he wants to see his orders carried out at all costs, Maryk removes him with the help of the other officers of the command and brings it over Ship in safety.

Upon their return home, the Caine's officers in command, First Officer Lieutenant Maryk and Duty Deck Officer Ensign Keith, were charged with mutiny and tried before a court-martial , where Defense Attorney Lt. Barney Greenwald manages to put Queeg under such pressure in court that the latter exposes his unbridled, pathologically paranoid self in court and thus justifies the decision of his subordinates.

At the subsequent victory celebration of Maryk and the officers of the Caine, however , the lawyer expresses his contempt for his clients and makes them all responsible for Queeg's irrational behavior and thus also for the mutiny, who had refused to help Queeg. His disdain for Keefer is especially great, who lied as a witness during the trial to avoid a possible charge of mutiny. He calls him a dishonorable coward who hates the US Navy . He also emphasizes that it was he who initiated the mutiny on the Caine for this reason, also with the idea in the back of his mind to write a book about it in order to achieve a lot of money and prestige with its sale. He also points out that it was professional officers like Queeg who defended the country when the war began, and not them. Then Greenwald raises his glass to Lt. Keefer - and pours the drink on his face.

The film ends with the arrival of just junior to Lieutenant grade transported Willie Keith and the same time the Commander carried DeVriess, the original commander of Caine , on a new ship, a frigate commanded by DeVriess. Captain DeVriess, who appears to be very fond of Keith despite the differences he had with him on the Caine , hands over command of the casting off maneuver to the completely perplexed Willie Keith.

production

Production notes

Portions of the film were shot in San Francisco , Yosemite National Park, and Pearl Harbor . The director Edward Dmytryk wrote in his autobiography that the Navy provided an old four-chimney ship to two sister destroyers for production. Dmytryk also said in his biography that Wouk's first contribution to the script was "a disaster". Stanley Roberts then wrote a new version and Wouk was only mentioned in the film as the author of the original. Robert's script was then shortened by almost fifty pages by the author Michael Blankfort to meet the studio's time limit.

The working title of the film was Authority and Rebellion . The film is preceded by a prologue thanking the Home Office for allowing filming in Yosemite National Park. In addition, the notice appears that there has never been a mutiny on a ship of the United States Navy . The truth of the film lies not in what happens, but in how some men go through the crisis of their lives. In the credits, the film is dedicated to the United States Navy.

According to Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter , Stanley Kramer bought the rights to Wouk's novel for an amount believed to have ranged from $ 60,000 to $ 70,000 after other studios backed out of the United States Navy's refusal to collaborate on the production of the film had made. At least two other studios are said to have submitted proposals to the Navy, but they were rejected.

An article in the New York Times in October 1952 revealed that there were two scripts prepared for Kramer, one that received the romance with Willie and May, and a shorter version that only included actions on the Caine and before the court-martial included. In December 1952, the Navy then officially approved the script and hired a technical consultant to assist with the production. Columbia is said to have released the "Caine Mutiny" in mid-1954 in order to distribute their large-scale production accordingly. In connection with the film's release, Bogart was featured as a queeg on the cover of a June issue of Time magazine , which also featured an article about the actor's long career.

background

The USS Caine featured in the film was actually the U.S. rapid minesweeper destroyer USS Thompson (DMS-38 / ex-DD-627) . The studio superstructures for the interior shots are also modeled on this ship. This does not coincide with the novel in which the Caine was not a modern ship, but a conversion of an old four-chimney destroyer from the First World War . Nevertheless, the scenes on the ships, their maneuvers, the nautical language and the commands as well as the people involved appear skillful and are absolutely realistic.

The US Navy was very critical of the portrayal of a warship commander as a mentally unstable paranoid. Columbia Pictures finally agreed to add a statement to the opening credits stating that the plot was purely fictional and that there was never a mutiny on a U.S. Navy ship (apparently not counting the mutiny on the USS Somers ) . A corresponding explanation can already be found in the afterword of the novel by Wouk, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize at the time. In return, the Navy provided the ships, planes and other material.

If one counts only with the cinema revenues of the time, The Caine Was Her Destiny was Humphrey Bogart's most commercially successful film. The actor Michael Caine chose his stage name "Caine" because Humphrey Bogart was his idol and he found a movie poster for this film so impressive.

The film marks the film debut of the actor Robert Francis (1930–1955). Francis died in a plane crash shortly after completing his last film, The Long Gray Line . Although it was spread that the film should also have been the debut of May Wynn, she appeared in six other films in 1952, 1953 under her real name Donna Lee Hickey. She borrowed her new name from the character she played in this film.

Even before the film was even produced, Wouk edited his novel for a two-act film entitled The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial , which premiered on Broadway in January 1954 . Henry Fonda appeared there as Barney Greenwald, John Hodiak as Steven Maryk, Lloyd Nolan as Capt. Queeg, Charles Nolte as Willie Keith and Robert Gist as Tom Keefer. Charles Laughton directed the ensemble. Wouk wrote the script for a television remake that aired on CBS in May 1988. Jeff Daniels and Brad Davis starred in the production of Robert Altman .

synchronization

The German dubbing was created in 1954 in the studio of Ultra Film Synchron GmbH in Berlin. Theodor Mühlen directed the dubbing .

role actor Voice actor
Philip Francis Queeg Humphrey Bogart OE Hasse
Barney Greenwald José Ferrer Wilhelm Borchert
Steve Maryk Van Johnson Horst Niendorf
Tom Keefer Fred MacMurray Curt Ackermann
William DeVriess Tom Tully Walter Suessenguth
May Wynn May Wynn Marion Degler
Henry Payntner Arthur Franz Wolfgang Preiss
Jack Challee EG Marshall Martin hero
President of the Court Blakely Warner Anderson Siegfried Schürenberg

reception

publication

The film premiered on June 24, 1954 in New York.

The German premiere was on September 10, 1954, the German television premiere on April 2, 1970 on ARD .

criticism

At the time of its release, the film was widely acclaimed and referred to as "one of the most exhilarating marine adventures of all time" by the film industry magazine The Hollywood Reporter . Daily Variety determined that the film was cast from a single source and almost perfectly cast. Humphrey Bogart's appearance as a fearful, steely Capt. Queeg, obsessed with missing strawberries, is often cited by modern critics as the highlight of the acting career.

"Streamlined film version of the successful novel: a gripping war drama with concise psychological and moral conflicts that are deepened by the impressive 'duel' between Bogart and Ferrer."

- Lexicon of international film

"Dmytryk's direction [...] is considerable, but the actual conflict of the story remained non-binding."

- Frankfurter Rundschau

“Excellent lake shots and high-quality acting make up for the somewhat violent shortening of the well-known novel by H. Wouk. Worth seeing from 16. "

- 6000 films. Critical notes from the cinema years 1945 to 1958.

“Compared to the novel of the same name, the film dispenses with psychological profiling of the characters and is thus limited to a more outward description of the plot. Only a few acting performances are remarkable. "

- Protestant film observer

Awards

Oscar nominations

At the BAFTA Awards , the film was nominated for best US film and José Ferrer was nominated for best foreign actor.

literature

  • Stephan Doering: Whoever is not for us is against us! - The Caine was her destiny. In: Stephan Doering, Heidi Möller (eds.): Frankenstein and Belle de Jour - 30 film characters and their mental disorders. Springer Medizin Verlag, Heidelberg 2008, ISBN 978-3-540-76879-1 , pp. 234-244.
  • Herman Wouk : The Caine was her destiny. Roman (OT: The Caine Mutiny ). German by Christoph Ecke. Sailing advice: Eugen von Beulwitz. Bastei-Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1997, ISBN 3-404-12689-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ TMDB: The Caine Was Her Destiny (1959)
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g The Caine Mutiny (1954) - Notes. In: Turner Classic Movies . Retrieved January 2, 2020 .
  3. ↑ How Michael Caine got his name from a Bogart film In: Mainpost, March 13, 2013. Retrieved February 26, 2018.
  4. ↑ Thomas Bräutigam : Lexicon of film and television synchronization. More than 2000 films and series with their German voice actors etc. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-289-X , p. 88.
  5. ^ The Caine Mutiny (1954) - Original Print Information. In: Turner Classic Movies . Retrieved January 2, 2020 .
  6. ↑ The Caine was her destiny. In: Lexkion des Internationale Films, (CD-ROM edition), Systhema, Munich 1997.
  7. ↑ The Caine was her destiny. In: Frankfurter Rundschau , Frankfurt am Main
  8. ↑ 6000 films. Critical notes from the cinema years 1945 to 1958. Handbook V of the Catholic film criticism. 3. Edition. Verlag Haus Altenberg, Düsseldorf 1963, p. 58.
  9. ↑ The Caine was her destiny. In: Ev. Munich Press Association, Review No. 815/1954