The Last Voyage (1960)

So much average

A lot of fun.

How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

"The Last Voyage" is an American disaster film written and directed by Andrew L. Stone and released in 1960. Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone star as a couple traveling on the SS Claridon en route to Japan with their Shirley Temple-like daughter. A fire starts in the boiler room and the damage leads to an explosion, which threatens to sink the ship. George Sanders plays the in-denial captain who thinks his ship is unsinkable and Woody Strode a crewmember who assists the couple. There are similarities in the story to the sinking of the SS Andria Doria, which sank four years earlier.The trailer advertised the film as "91 minutes of the most intense suspense in motion picture history" and it's actually not far from the truth (up to that time) as this is a very suspenseful film from beginning to end. Another plus is that they didn't use conventional sets and special effects; the movie's shot on a real ship, the French luxury liner SS Ile de France, which was scheduled to be scrapped before Stone rented it for $1.5 million. The vessel was partially sunk in shallow waters and the crashing of the towering funnel into the deckhouse is for real.Despite these impressive elements the film lost half a million at the box office and fails to break the threshold of greatness like 1972's "The Poseidon Adventure" and 1997's "Titanic." It's more consistently suspenseful from beginning to end, but this reveals its weakness: The film lacks the establishment of characters of those other films, which isn't to say there aren't parts of mounting anticipation. Nevertheless, instead of a great build-up to disaster it's more of an even-keel of suspense.Moreover, "The Last Voyage" lacks the deeper subtext of those more popular sinking-ship films. Whereas "The Poseidon Adventure" potently addresses the universal question "Why does a righteous God allow tragedy and death?" and "Titanic" explores the corruption of wealth and the unbiased idealism of youth, "The Last Voyage" is simply a movie about a sinking ship and the people trying to survive. Of course, it doesn't HAVE to be anything more than this and it's very good in its old fashioned way, but this one-dimensional approach also hinders it from greatness. However, the inclusion of likable Woody Strode in a prominent role well before the Civil Rights movement is indeed praiseworthy.The film runs 91 minutes and was shot in Sea of Japan off the coast of Osaka, although the final lifeboat scene was filmed in Santa Monica, California due to the poisonous jellyfish in the Japanese waters.GRADE: B

I had not seen this movie before, so I was not sure what to expect. Immediately I was caught up in a sense of realism that pervades this movie. You really come to believe that this is a real ship that they are sinking. No CGI, no models, but it's the real thing and you are there. In that sense it is a harrowing experience, as the filmmakers make you feel that you are alongside these people as they go through a terrifying experience. The pacing of the drama is crisp and the cinematography is first rate. It's a roller coaster ride that once it starts is all downhill at full speed.The acting is first rate by all the majors, particularly Dorothy Malone, Edmund O'Brien and Robert Stack. The little girl playing Malone & Stack's child has some great scenes as well. The drama reaches its peak in the scene in which Dorothy Malone is trapped under bulkheads as the ship is sinking while Stack and Woody Strode run around the ship like madmen trying to find what they need to rescue her. When Stack is holding Malone's mouth above the rising water as it splashes against her face to prevent her from drowning the tension is amazing. It seems hopeless and her situation breaks your heart. This is great drama that is actually hard to take at times. A great job by the filmmakers.

This early disaster movie is dated and hackneyed but it manages to build to a suspenseful conclusion.What would you do in a similar situation -- drown with your spouse or jump aboard a lifeboat so your only child wouldn't become an orphan? This movie was striking for the moral dilemmas that it raised; I watched it with my 8-year-old son and it was interesting for us to weigh these questions together.Yet "The Last Voyage" is full of clichés and weirdness. How preternaturally happy the central couple seemed together before the crisis hit -- I didn't believe that a married couple would act this mutually bewitched. Their daughter struck me as a mini-adult in a child's body -- her screeches were so uncharacteristic of a young girl that I wished she would slip as she blubberingly crossed a plank over an abyss. And how anachronistically odd to see the only black person on board appearing bare-chested throughout, as if he were a modern incarnation of Melville's Queequeg.The film's conclusion was suspenseful and somewhat moving despite my conviction throughout that this movie would end happily. Various illogicalities jarred along the way -- how 'bout that wife appearing glamorous throughout her ordeal? And how the hell can she stand on her own just moments after being cut from the debris? Despite such quibbles, this movie kept my interest.

I am a retired U.S. Navy Captain, an Engineering Duty Officer who ran shipyards for many years and was Chief Engineer of an aircraft carrier. Ships and what make them tick were my thing for 30 years. I trained for the disaster depicted in "The Last Voyage" for many years and fortunately never encountered it.I can tell you with some expertise that this is the most realistic film of this genre ever made. I was astounded watching it. They actually got most of the terminology and sequence of events correct. Edmund O'Brien made a convincing Engineer. It could almost be a training film for: > attempting to manually trip a boiler safety valve > shoring up a bulkhead in an adjacent flooded space etc.If you want to see what something like this might be like, watch this film. I also found the ending pretty suspenseful - I wasn't quite sure who was going to live, and who was going to die.