Film Friday: The Caine Mutiny (1954)

The Caine Mutiny is a classic. It’s also one of my favorite films. This movie does everything right, including having a fantastic twist long before twists were cool. It is an acting tour de force. And what makes this movie work, believe it or not, is subtlety.

** Spoiler Alert -- If you don’t know the ending, see the movie before you read this review. **

The Plot

Adapted incredibly well from Herman Wouk’s novel of the same name, The Caine Mutiny is the fictional story of a mutiny aboard a United States Navy destroyer-minesweeper during World War II. The story begins with the arrival of self-centered, spoiled Ensign Willie Keith aboard the Caine. Keith resents being assigned to the Caine, an ancient, beat up minesweeper, because he saw himself as more important than this. What’s worse, the Caine’s captain is a slob who has let discipline fall apart.

Keith befriends the ship’s executive officer Lt. Stephen Maryk (Van Johnson) and its communications officer Lt. Thomas Keefer (Fred MacMurray). Maryk is earnest and loyal, but not very bright. Keefer is cynical and cowardly. Soon the Caine’s captain is replaced by Lt. Commander Phillip Francis Queeg (Humphrey Bogart), a no-nonsense career officer who has served in hard combat for several years. At first, Keith is happy that Queeg has taken over because Queeg demands regular navy discipline. But it doesn’t take long for Keith to resent Queeg because Queeg seems arbitrary and tyrannical. It also becomes apparent that Queeg’s nerves are shot. All of this alienates the crew and worries Maryk, who fears that Queeg is unfit for command. During an ensuing monsoon, Queeg freezes up and Maryk relieves him of command to save the ship. A court martial follows.

What Makes This Film So Great

At the core of The Caine Mutiny lies some truly spectacular acting. Van Johnson walked a tightrope with Maryk, between being a simple, earnest man we could trust and respect and being just dumb enough to be made a patsy. MacMurray had to be trustworthy enough that we believed Maryk would trust him, but cowardly enough to explain how he kept his hands clean, and cynical enough that his attacks on Queeg were sharp and eviscerating and would sway the audience. Both of these performances required real understanding of human nature and how to walk the fine lines that separate very different personalities.

But the real star was Bogart. The Caine Mutiny includes one of the greatest acting performance ever when Humphrey Bogart testifies at the court martial. Bogart’s portrayal of a man breaking down on the stand was so captivating the entire film crew actually gave him a thundering round of applause when he finished. It was well deserved.

This was an incredibly fascinating and subtle performance. We’ve seen Queeg throughout the film and in each instance, he was arbitrary or cowardly. Even when he tried to be jovial, he seemed tyrannical. Moreover, we know for a fact he froze up in the monsoon and put the ship in danger -- thus, we know Maryk was justified in his actions and has essentially been wrongfully accused by Queeg. Hence, we are predisposed to hate Queeg. But Bogart can’t let us hate Queeg because of the twist to come. So Bogart needed to find a way to make us sympathetic to both Queeg and Maryk, even though they are directly opposed.

Here’s how he pulls that off. First, when Queeg shows up at trial, he tries to diffuse the whole proceeding by being magnanimous and stating that he holds no malice against the mutineers. This teases the audience by suggesting he may recant. It also suggests mental instability because of the personality shift. But as he’s questioned by the prosecutor any pretense of honesty vanishes and he knowingly shades the truth. Bogart tells us Queeg knows he's lying, because he acts like a man trapped in a lie. He’s hesitant in his testimony, he shifts uncomfortably in his chair, and he seems unable to make eye contact with the defendants.

Bogart has done two interesting things here. First, he gives the audience hope that Queeg will break on the stand because Queeg is already falling apart. This raises the stakes for the cross-examination and heightens the tension. Secondly, by suggesting that Queeg feels trapped in his lie, Bogart starts to break down the audience's hate. When Queeg first walked into the room, the audience saw Queeg as a petty tyrant. Suddenly, there is the suggestion that Queeg can’t help himself. This introduces the idea that Queeg is actually a pathetic character rather than a genuine tyrant.

Then the cross examination begins. As defense attorney Barney Greenwald (José Ferrer) hits Queeg with a series of questions about seemingly minor incidents, Queeg begins to embellish. He doesn’t rant or rave or scream or challenge Greenwald, he simply changes his story as needed, each time adding more people to the list of people he’s calling disloyal. This reinforces the idea that Queeg has a problem, rather than being malicious. As the list grows, Bogart’s Queeg gets more and more nervous because even he realizes that while he might have thought he was right in each instance, the sheer number of instances and their similarity are starting to sound paranoid.

Then Bogart makes a key dramatic shift. Queeg is confronted with an incident where he is absolutely certain he was in the right and he jumps on it. Now he rants and raves and exorcises all of his frustrations about the disloyalty he felt he received. But rather than direct Queeg's anger at the mutineers, everything he says is aimed at proving he was right in his suspicions. In other words, Bogart transforms Queeg from a man accusing others to a man trying to justify his actions himself. This is a vital difference. If Queeg is accusing others, then we are happy when he fails. But if Queeg is trying to prove his own sanity, then we are sad when he fails. And when Queeg looks up and sees the shocked faces of everyone in the room, he stops. He knows he’s wrong.

At that point, we are relieved that Maryk and Keith have survived the trial, but we also feel a great deal of pity for Queeg. Then the film hits us with the twist.

As the mutineers celebrate their victory, Jose Ferrer shows up drunk. He’s upset because he thinks the mutineers were the real bad guys and he feels horrible about “torpedoing” Queeg to help them. Queeg was worn out, his nerves were shot. The crew fought him at every turn, and when you think about it, what seemed like humorous disobedience aimed at a tyrant really was a tantrum aimed at a man who was trying to hold together a United States Navy vessel that was falling apart. Ferrer even reminds us that we scoffed at Queeg when he came begging for help.

And like that, your view of every event in the film suddenly changes. Suddenly, we realize that the mutineers, and we the audience by proxy as we enjoyed their games, have been unfair to Queeg the entire time. We mistreated Queeg. We caused the very circumstances that led to the mutiny and we destroyed him. And that makes this one of the best twists of all time, because it fundamentally changes the meaning of the film and because the evidence was there from the opening frame. We just didn’t want to see it.

This is a classic example of everything that can go right with a film when you’ve got great actors, writers and directors who understand subtlety and how humans respond to certain behaviors. Every fact we needed to know was there all along, but we never saw the truth because our opinions about the characters were expertly manipulated so that we just didn't want to see it. This is how movies should be made.