Drama - Merchant Marine M - Z
Moby Dick
Warner Bros (USA)
Director: John Huston
Screenplay: Ray Bradbury
Source: Herman Meville (novel)
Cast: Gregory Peck, Richard Basehart, Leo Genn
116 minutes - 1956
Captain Ahab seeks vengeance upon the whale who crippled him
Moby Dick
American Zoetrope (USA)
Director: Franc Roddam
Screenplay: Anton Diether ; Franc Roddam ; Benedict Fitzgerald
Source: Herman Meville (novel)
Cast: Patrick Stewart, Henry Thomas, Gregory Peck, Ted Levine
180 minutes - 1998
Captain Jean-Luc Ahab vs. the great white whale. Originally a TV mini-series
Morituri
20th Century Fox (USA)
Director: Bernhard Wicki
Screenplay: Daniel Taradash
Source: Werner Jörg Lüddecke (novel)
Cast: Marlon Brando, Yul Brynner
123 minutes - 1965
Suspense on ship from Japan to Germany
The Navy Comes Through
RKO (USA)
Director: A. Edward Sutherland
Screenplay: Æneas MacKenzie ; Roy Chanslor
Source: Borden Chase (story)
Cast: Pat O'Brien, George Murphy, Jane Wyatt, Jackie Cooper
82 minutes - 1942
A U.S. Navy crew aboard a merchant marine ship battle Nazis
A Night to Remember
J. Arthur Rank (UK)
Director: Roy Ward Baker
Screenplay: Eric Ambler
Source: Walter Lord (book)
Cast: Kenneth More, Ronald Allen, Robert Ayres
123 minutes - 1958
On its maiden voyage in April 1912, the supposedly unsinkable RMS Titanic hits an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean.
One Way Passage
Warner Bros (USA)
Director: Tay Garrnet
Screenplay: Wilson Mizner ; Joseph Jackson
Source: Robert Lord (play)
Cast: William Powell, Kay Francis, Frank McHugh
67 minutes - 1932
A terminally ill woman and a debonair murderer meet and fall in love on a trans-Pacific crossing. Filmed on a real PAX
Outward Bound
Warner Bros (USA)
Director: Robert Milton
Screenplay: J. Grubb Alexander
Source: Sutton Vane (play)
Cast:Leslie Howard, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Beryl Mercer
83 minutes - 1930
Ship is holding room for afterlife
Between Two Worlds
Warner Bros (USA)
Director: Edward A. Blatt
Screenplay: Daniel Fuchs
Source: Sutton Vane (play)
Cast: John Garfield, Paul Henreid, Sydney Greenstreet, Eleanor Parker
112 minutes - 1944
WWII ship is holding room for afterlife
The Perfect Storm
Warner Bros (USA)
Director: Wolfgang Petersen
Screenplay: William D. Wittliff
Source: Sebastian Junger (book)
Cast: George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, John C. Reilly
130 minutes - 2000
An unusually intense storm pattern catches some commercial fishermen unaware and puts them in mortal danger
Phantom Ship
Hammer (UK)
Director: Cliff Denison
Screenplay: Charles Larkworthy
Source: Cliff Denison (story)
Other Titles: The Mystery of the Mary Celeste
Cast: Bela Lugosi, Shirley Grey, Cliff McLaglen
62 minutes - 1935
During a horrific storm at sea, the crew realizes that there is a murderer among them who is killing them off one by one.
The Poseidon Adventure
20th Century Fox (USA)
Director: Ronald Neame
Screenplay: Stirling Silliphant ; Wendell Mayes
Source: Paul Gallico (novel)
Cast: Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters
117 minutes - 1972
A passenger ship is pushed to her limits by the new owners to save on the dismantling fees. A tidal wave hits her, flipping her over so that all the internal rooms are upside down.
Poseidon
Warner Bros (USA)
Director: Wolfgang Petersen
Screenplay: Mark Protosevich
Source: Paul Gallico (novel)
Cast: Richard Dreyfuss, Kurt Russell, Emmy Rossum
98 minutes - 2006
On New Year's Eve, the luxury ocean liner Poseidon capsizes after being swamped by a rogue wave. The survivors are left to fight for their lives as they attempt to escape the sinking ship
The Raging Tide
Universal (USA)
Director: George Sherman
Screenplay: Ernest K. Gann
Source: Ernest K. Gann (novel)
Cast: Shelley Winters, Charles Bickford, Richard Conte, Stephen McNally, Alex Nicol
93 minutes - 1951
San Francisco hood Bruno escapes capture by stowing away on a fishing boat. At sea, the skipper teaches Bruno fishing while Bruno in turn enlists the skipper's wayward son to tend his slot machines. Climax in a storm at sea.
San Demertrio London
Ealing Studios (UK)
Director: Charles Frend
Screenplay: Robert Hamer ; Charles Frend
Cast: Arthur Young, Walter Fitzgerald, Ralph Michael
104 minutes - 1943
The San Demetrio of the title is a British merchant ship in an Atlantic convoy in 1940. Disabled and left to the mercy of patrolling U-boats the crew must keep her afloat and out of harms way
The Sea Chase
Warner Bros (USA)
Director: John Farrow
Screenplay: James Warner Bellah ; John Twist
Source: Andrew Geer (novel)
Cast: John Wayne, Lana Turner, Tab Hunter
117 minutes - 1955
As World War II begins, German freighter Captain Karl Ehrlich tries to get his ship back to Germany through a gauntlet of Allied warships
Sea Fury
J. Arthur Rank (UK)
Director: Cy Endfield
Screenplay: Cy Endfield ; John Kruse
Cast: Stanley Baker, Victor McLaglen, Luciana Paluzzi
86 minutes - 1958
Off the Spanish coast, two tug-boat captains are caught in a violent feud over a woman but their rivalry is set aside when a sinking freighter carrying explosives must be salvaged and towed to port
The Sea Wolf
Warner Bros (USA)
Director: Michael Curtiz
Screenplay: Robert Rossen
Source: Jack London (novel)
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Ida Lupino, John Garfield
100 minutes - 1941
After being fished out of the sea by a sealer, three fugitives find themselves prisoners of the ship's brutal skipper who refuses to put them ashore
The Sea Wolf
Turner (USA)
Director: Michael Anderson
Screenplay: Andrew J. Fenady
Source: Jack London (novel)
Cast: Charles Bronson, Catherine Mary Stewart, Marc Singer, Christopher Reeve
90 minutes - 1993
Brutal Wolf Larson brings a shipwrecked aristocrat and a con woman aboard his doomed ship, the Ghost
Ship of Fools
Columbia (USA)
Director: Stanley Kramer
Screenplay: Abby Mann
Source: Katherine Anne Porter (novel)
Cast: Vivien Leigh, Simone Signoret, José Ferrer, Lee Marvin
149 minutes - 1965
A varied group of passengers boarding a ship bound for pre-WWII Germany represents a microcosm of early 1930s society
The Ship That Died of Shame
Ealing Studios (UK)
Director: Basil Dearden
Screenplay: John Whiting ; Michael Relph ; Basil Dearden
Source: Nicholas Monsarrat (story)
Other Titles: PT Raiders
Cast: George Baker, Richard Attenborough, Roland Culver, Bill Owen
95 minutes - 1955
A trio of ex-servicemen begin smuggling innocuous black market items into post-war Britain with their old RN Motor gun boat, but through greed they graduate to more sinister cargo.
Sinking of the Lusitania: Terror at Sea
BBC (UK)
Director: Christopher Spencer
Screenplay: Sarah Williams
Source: Diana Preston (book)
Other Titles: Lusitania: Murder on the Atlantic
Cast: John Hannah, Kenneth Cranham, Florian Panzner
90 minutes - 2007
Docudrama of the ill fated ship
Tampico
20th Century Fox (USA)
Director: Lothar Mendes
Screenplay: Ladislas Fodor
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Lynn Bari, Victor McLaglen
75 minutes - 1944
Oil-tanker Captain Manson rescues Kathie Hall in Gulf of Mexico after her ship is sunk. When his ship is sunk, she is suspected
Titanic
20th Century Fox (USA)
Director: Jean Negulesco
Screenplay: Charles Brackett ; Walter Reisch ; Richard Breen
Cast: Clifton Webb, Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Wagner
98 minutes - 1953
An unhappily married couple struggle to deal with their problems while on board the ill-fated ship
Titanic
20th Century Fox (USA)
Director: James Cameron
Screenplay: James Cameron
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Bill Paxton
194 minutes - 1997
A seventeen-year-old aristocrat falls in love with a kind but poor artist aboard the luxurious, ill-fated R.M.S. Titanic
Twilight for the Gods
Universal (USA)
Director: Joseph Pevney
Screenplay: Ernest K. Gann
Source: Ernest K. Gann (novel)
Cast: Rock Hudson, Cyd Charisse, Arthur Kennedy
120 minutes - 1958
Having seen better days, the sailing vessel Cannibal sets out for Mexico from the south Pacific with a leaking hull. Believing the vessel to not be seaworthy, the crew pleads to change course for Honolulu. Being wanted there in connection with a man's death, a passenger wants to avoid Honolulu
Two Years Before the Mast
Paramount (USA)
Director: John Farrow
Screenplay: Seton I. Miller ; George Bruce
Source: Richard Henry Dana (book)
Cast: Alan Ladd, Brian Donlevy, William Bendix
98 minutes - 1946
The playboy son of a wealthy shipping magnate discovers at first hand the desperate privations suffered by the crew of one of his fathers ships when he is unwillingly pressganged aboard
Wake of the Red Witch
Republic (USA)
Director: Edward Ludwig
Screenplay: Harry Brown ; Kenneth Gamet
Source: Garland Roark (novel)
Cast: John Wayne, Gail Russell, Gig Young
106 minutes - 1948
Adventures involving sunken gold bullion, pearls, natives, an unscrupulous ship owner and a giant octopus
The World in His Arms
Universal (USA)
Director: Raoul Walsh
Screenplay: Borden Chase
Source: Rex Beach (novel)
Cast: Gregory Peck, Ann Blyth, Anthony Quinn
104 minutes - 1952
In San Francisco in 1850, a Russian Countess runs away from an arranged marriage to a Russian Prince and falls into the arms of an American sea captain who occasionally poaches seals in Russian Alaska
The Wreck of the Mary Deare
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (USA)
Director: Michael Anderson
Screenplay: Eric Ambler
Source: Hamilton Innes (novel)
Cast: Gary Cooper, Charlton Heston, Michael Redgrave
105 minutes - 1959
A disgraced merchant marine officer elects to stay aboard his sinking cargo ship in order to prove the vessel was deliberately scuttled and, as a result, vindicate his good name