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Nautical Film Index

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

 

 

 

 

 

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