alexanderdavies-99382 Marlon Brando was in the middle of his lean period when he made this World War Two thriller. "Morituri" did little to revive him as the film flopped when it came out in 1965. I am hardly surprised by this! The story on the written page looked quite interesting, no doubt. The final results are a right shambles. The main problem with this movie, is the lack of a coherent narrative. After about the opening 15 minutes, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep up with what is meant to be happening. Marlon Brando is cast as another German character who is ordered by British Intelligence to capture a particular vessel which is set to be dynamited. Brando needs to prevent this. Trevor Howard - in a couple of brief scenes - is the one who liasons with Brando at the beginning. The British actor should have been given more screen time. Yul Brynner is his usual robotic self as the ship's captain. I found myself having to guess what was occurring from one scene to the next and most of the film is restricted to being set and filmed on the ship. Long before the end (and it seemed interminable), I gave up on this rambling mess.

Sean Lamberger Two German citizens on different sides of the war effort find themselves at the center of a clandestine cargo-grab in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Marlon Brando plays the first, a pacifist expat who's arm-twisted into aiding British intelligence as a counter agent, while Yul Brynner takes charge as a disillusioned sea captain in charge of a precious Nazi payload. Though they're constantly at-odds, for reasons both above the surface and beneath, the two men have much more in common than either would like to admit. This makes for an interesting conflict, as both attempt to conceal a secret that would otherwise serve to potentially unite them. Commendable for the constant churn of its plot, which changes shape by the minute and drives its players to scramble in response, it deserves special marks for exploring the deep humanity of the cast. With but one exception, a first mate who's as dedicated to the Reich as Hitler himself, this vessel is awash in shades of grey, and that's a refreshing change of pace. Level-headed and even-handed, it keeps us guessing and even serves to shock on one jagged, violent occasion.

George Aar This movie started out well enough, the sets and costumes and even the acting was all fine, but it just ran out of story.Brando as the pacifist, German ex-pat, living out the war in pampered isolation in India was believable enough. And him being blackmailed into taking on a top secret mission to save a valuable shipment of rubber to help end the war was plausible, if a tad mundane.But after Brando's on the ship and his mission of disarming the scuttling charges has been mostly accomplished, what else is there to do? Well, here they insert some Nazis officers and a troupe of American prisoners to stretch out the storyline. And it mostly works, except for the maudlin, overwrought character of "Esther" who brings in a note of melodrama formerly unseen in the flick. That performance pretty much spoils the picture and then the movie just sort of slowly grinds to a halt and the credits roll up.So, it's mostly a passable show up until Esther enters and muddles things up and then the story just runs out of gas. One wonders if maybe the writers just got tired and went home early?

Edgar Soberon Torchia "Morituri" was released 48 years ago... It seems nobody saw it. Or maybe influential but dumb film critics boycotted it. Based on a novel by Werner Jörg Lüddecke, it is a cynical, anti-war movie, made during a time when the US government was in the midst of its war campaign against Vietnam. This explains a bit the audiences' response, but does not justify the bad service of the film guides. I did not see it either. In 1965 there were many good releases, it is true, but I, at 14 years old, was more into watching my idol Paula Prentiss playing a suicidal poet-strip-teaser, Shirley MacLaine trapped in a harem in the Middle East, Julie Andrews singing in the Alps, Sandra Milo wearing chiffon and big hats for Fellini, Barbara Stanwyck shrieking each time she saw the ghost of her blind husband, or Virna Lisi emerging from a gigantic cake. I caught up with "Darling", "The Hill" and "King Rat", but it took me decades to see "The Pawnbroker" or "Alphaville". And now, 48 years later, I discover that Bernhard Wicki's "Morituri" is very good! Marlon Brando is cynicism personified as Schroeder, a demolition expert who refused to enlist (something that in 1965 was not unusual among young Americans who opposed to US intervention in Vietnam), and went to live with a forged passport in India under the name of Crain, to avoid the Führer's armed forces. But being India under British regime and him a prisoner, he is found by Trevor Howard, a member of British Intelligence, who blackmails him to put him aboard a cargo ship with 7000 tons of rubber for Nazi tires and other applications that is sailing from Tokyo to occupied France captained by Yul Brynner. The Allies are interested in the cargo. It is never clarified why they need to take someone else's rubber, instead of getting their own, but what matters for the purpose of the story is that if a Nazi ship is trapped, the captain must sink it, and that is why Marlon must disarm all the bombs, so a convoy of American destroyers can capture the ship and keep the cargo. It is great to watch Brando and Brynner confronting each other, and it is their merit that none plays the divo (or diva). Especially Brynner, who was so adept to pose for the camera as one of those models of vintage physique magazines (check "Kings of the Sun"!), is often restrained and effective. (We don't have to talk much about Marlon – he was always good of simply Brando in the worst turkeys). Add to the events the introduction of a Jewish girl, a character with an intense charge of pathos, and you have 123 minutes full of interesting dramatic action (and there is some physical action too), well handled by Wicki and with exceptional cinematography in black and white by Conrad Hall, the maestro who shot the classics "In Cold Blood" (1967), "Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid" and "American Beauty". The cast also includes very good performances by the German players Martin Benrath (as the stereotypical Nazi bastard) and Hans Christian Blech (as an anti-Nazi political prisoner), Hungarian actor Oscar Beregi Jr. as the German admiral, veteran Russian actor Ivan Triesault (often cast as German villains) as a collaborator of the Allies in the German Embassy in Tokyo, and Janet Margolin as the Jewish Esther Levy. Highly recommended.