The two posters above do evince a certain desperation, but most film publicity does. The exclamation marks, bold print, hysterical repetition — this is not the behaviour of a confident form. But here we see perhaps more performance anxiety than usual. The change of title betrays a lack of fixity of purpose, and the decision to brand the film as “something unusual” suggests uncertainty, just as the CITIZEN KANE poster’s “It’s terrific!” conveys less a filmmaker’s bold artistic achievement, more an advertising man’s helpless confusion. Maybe a film poster with HOW DO I SELL THIS? would result in a hit, as a piece of Stan Freberg type honesty in advertising?
MORITURI or “MORITURI” or THE SABOTEUR: CODENAME – “MORITURI” is no KANE, but it’s a lot better than I was expecting, never having learned to love director Bernhard Wicki as much as director Bernhard Wicki loves skin blemishes. Aided immeasurably by cinematographer Conrad Hall he gloats and glories at and in Trevor Howard’s extravagantly cratered mug, then revels in the scars, creases and skin damage of an entire shipload of players. Even Yul Brynner has never looked so pitted — he has little crevasses at the left corner of his mouth not normally perceived by the camera. Brando seems to sprout a great bump on his forehead whenever he furrows his brow, though it vanishes whenever he unwrinkles himself, some kind of subcutaneous continuity error. Maybe an alternative title could be ON THE WARTY FRONT.
The plot is all about rubber, which seems a hopeless premise — the Brits want to capture a big shipment of NAZI RUBBER and they need German pacifist Brando (good accent) so get on board in disguise and disable the scuttling devices, small bombs planted all over the craft. That’s the plot. I would say it’s not easy to care about a ship full of rubber, but that wouldn’t really be true. It’s impossible to care about a ship full of rubber. MacGuffin as verfremdungseffekt, an alienation device at the heart of the plot, and one not susceptible to defusing. It is of course possible to care about Brando and other characters whose fates become intertwined with this rubbery cargo, and I did to some small extent.
The film looks great — early on, Hall lights some studio scenes meant to be set in India in a very odd way — twigs cast pin-sharp shadows on the actors in a way that trees in daylight never do. But once we’re on board this real ship it gets terrific, especially in the engine room. Vertiginous angles and near-expressionist concatenations of ducts, pipes, wiring, walkways, hatches, dials, levers, bulbs, scary and oppressive metallic intestines that keep Hall’s nimble camera dancing from one jagged, lurching composition to another.
There’s also an unusual — that word again — early score by Jerry Goldsmith which is very nice.
The one extraneous or problematic element is Janet Margolin as a Jewish prisoner picked up from a sunken ship. It’s a zesty performance, maybe a little too much so. But the character is someone we can really care about, more than a hold full of rubber. The film doesn’t seem to realise this, though, or thinks that her narrative purpose should be to be tortured, to torture the audience and thus make us take this thing seriously. It ended up making me feel a bit sick. Daniel CASTLE KEEP Taradash and Walon THE WILD BUNCH Green are implicated.
With a better story, this could have been really excellent, but thanks to the intersection of Hall and that ship, it’s very watchable, a waste of Brando’s talents arguably but one which allows him to vault about in a tight jumper. A rehearsal for LAST TANGO, then.
MORITURI stars 1st Lt. Fletcher Christian; Rameses; Ellie Fabian; Captain William Bligh; Thomas Mann; Maj. Werner Pluskat; Mr. Robinson J. Peepers; Uncle Max; Grand Admiral Erich Raeder; Harding; Brain Control; Jules Verne; Joseph Goebbels; Emcee at Frankenstein’s Show; Von Ellstein; Dr. Charles Forbin; Horst; and Sulu.
shadowplay 