Destination Unknown (1933)

Excellent adaptation.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

It should always be remembered that Universal, while it had a big-city audience, was much stronger out in the more rural areas. With that in mind, this movie makes a bit more sense. It starts off like an O'Neill drama, with a rum runner shipwrecked with only a single barrel of water, and the crew -- led by Alan Hale -- hating the rum runners -- led by Pat O'Brien. They wrangle with a lot of dramatic lighting, and some people who rarely got the chance do some good straight drama.Then, halfway through, they discover Ralph Bellamy is on board. To say he is a Christ figure would be putting it mildly. He performs miracles like turning wine into water, healing cripples and saving everyone on board. For me, a big city type in 2017, it is way too heavy-handed. I'd like to think that director Tay Garnett, who directed some bang-up movies in the 1930s, had calculated it properly for his audience. But I don't think so.

Here's an old-fashioned morality play. You don't see many of these nowadays. In fact, you don't see them at all. But inspired by the truly fantastic success of Jerome K. Jerome's The Passing of the Third Floor Back, the genre used to be very popular. This one is rather heavily acted, but it's otherwise rather effectively directed by Tay Garnett. Despite what other critics say, it comes to a fine climax and has admirable special effects – both visual and oral. In fact, Garnett makes really inventively atmospheric use of sound effects in the first part of the movie where dialogue is underlined only by the creaking of the ship and the lashing of the waves. No music! In fact, no music at all is employed until the Christ character (played by Ralph Bellamy) appears.

The story opens in a dark fog, aboard a ship deadened by a hurricane that has killed the captain. Bootleggers have overtaken the vessel. They are hoarding the last barrel of water and forcibly controlling the crew at gunpoint. Pat O'Brien (cast against type) is the lead rumrunner facing off against Alan Hale, the leader of the crew. Ironic that the survivors have 5,000 cases of liquor but are facing dehydration. Through a series of sub-plots, hope is given then shattered again and again until a mysterious stowaway (Ralph Bellamy) appears behind a beam of light. I don't want to give too much away, but with The Passion setting box office records, I have to say that this stranger changes wine to water! The audience loved the peas soup thick atmosphere, surprise twists and at times laughed at the corny resolutions. And again Ralph Bellamy does not get the girl! Thank god for film festivals like this one that make rare films like this available and the folks who provide comments to IMDB for others to share. Please support the IMDB and early film festivals!