AlexanderAnubis CONTAINS SPOILERS No long vistas of sloping decks under starlit skies or of a sinking ship with rows of frightened people lining the rails. The film opens with a close up of a derelict WWII mine sloshing about in the sea while the sound of a large liner's engines gets louder and louder. A very brief swirl of explosion, fire and smoke set to a score of people screaming as a voice intones "Abandon Ship!" This is followed by a short sequence of some effective images - particularly a baby doll floating face up - with a narrator telling us the rest of the background we need to know for this unusual, unsettling drama about survival to begin.The story is simply this: a lifeboat is too overcrowded to survive a coming storm and the senior officer must decide unilaterally who to jettison overboard so the rest can have a chance to live. A simple problem with a simple solution - sort of.Based on events following the loss of the William Brown which departed Liverpool, England on March 13, 1841 for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with 65 passengers and 17 crew, and sank about 250 miles off Newfoundland after colliding with an iceberg on the night of April 19. (The Titanic sank about 300 miles off Newfoundland after colliding with an iceberg on the night of April 15 - 71 years later.) The film upgrades the ship to a large luxury liner in the mid-20th century and places it in the Pacific or South Atlantic Ocean as opposed to an emigrant vessel in the North Atlantic in the mid-19th century. It also takes many dramatic liberties with details and invents some over-dramatized subplots yet retains the larger events and moral dilemma essentially intact. The time line of the real events is naturally compressed in the film for clarity, but very well paced.In the actual sinking, two crew members made the decisions about who to sacrifice: the First Mate, Francis Rhodes and a crewman named Alexander William Holmes. Again for clarity, the film sensibly distills these into one character called Alexander Holmes (Tyrone Power) and makes him the senior officer. It also creates a plausible, (but not perfect), scenario for how one person in a crowded lifeboat could alone compel others to throw some overboard. Not that easy a plot device to construct without arming him with a machine gun - the script only allows its 'Alexander Holmes' a pistol which is initially unloaded and a flare gun.The real Holmes, Rhodes and other survivors eventually reached Philadelphia; Rhodes fled and was never found. Holmes was tried between April 13-23, 1842 in Philadelphia for manslaughter, found guilty and sentenced to a fine of $20.00 and six months in prison. The defense offered an argument of self-preservation, which had some merit hence the relatively light sentence and the jury's recommendation for leniency.The film ends with the survivors being rescued by a passing ship. At the finale the narrator returns, (nicely book-ending the story), explains that the real Holmes was tried, found guilty, sentenced to only six months due to the unusual circumstances and then asks the viewer to decide for themselves. This isn't Bergman or Campion or Kubrick but even so some serious thought went into this production.Another IMDb reviewer is very hard on this film, finding the plot absurd and unrealistic. Indeed it does appear fantastic, yet the historical accuracy is unusual for a movie in general and exceptional for 1957 US/UK co-production from Columbia Pictures. Before the invention of radio, ('wireless telegraphy'), in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, survivors of a disabled or sunken ship were pretty much on their own and had no way to call for help - the times when ships could literally "disappear without a trace." (Of course, at the time the movie takes place radio was well established - the script eliminates this inconsistency quite nicely.) The type of case the film is based on wasn't exactly unique: an excellent examination of the issues surrounding survival after shipwreck is "Cannibalism and the Common Law," A.W. Brian Simpson, University of Chicago Press, 1984. The book focuses on Regina v. Dudley & Stephens, the 1884 trial of two seamen for killing and eating the cabin-boy following the loss of the yacht Mignonette.Technically the film is very well done. The black and white photography is excellent and must have been difficult with so much water everywhere. The script has enough grit and rough edges to give it some real substance. Very good, solid performances by Tyrone Power, Mai Zetterling, Moira Lister, Lloyd Nolan and the rest of the cast. (Perhaps 'heroic' performances is more accurate given how often everyone on screen is soaked either from being immersed shoulders deep or from having spray blown onto them.) Often compared to Hitchcock's Lifeboat, which, I think, is a bit of apples & oranges as the claustrophobic locations are similar but the core plots distinct. Lifeboat is the earlier film and, not surprisingly, even though he had to make it up as he went along Hitchcock captured the claustrophobic feeling somewhat better. But director Richard Sale does a very good job as well and I would guess he probably had Lifeboat memorized before production started on Abandon Ship.David Langton, Gordon Jackson and Laurence Naismith have small parts: Langton and Jackson would work together again as the characters Richard Belamy and Angus Hudson, respectively, in the outstanding BBC series Upstairs, Downstairs of the early 1970s. Naismith plays the briefly surviving captain and the following year would play the Titanic's captain EJ Smith in A Night to Remember - not a lucky actor when given the command of a celluloid ship.Not flawless and perhaps a bit dated, but still a rather powerful, disturbing film. If this sort of story appeals, I recommend it very highly.XYZ

dbdumonteil "Seven waves away" or "abandon ship!" ,the latter being a more appropriate title ,is a British disaster movie based on real facts ;but a disaster movie which has almost nothing to do with the epics of the seventies.There is no Manicheism ,nothing like the good guys (and the smart young child) who are saved -except for a few exceptions ,for instance when they sacrifice their life-and the villains who get punished .The characters as far as clichés as they can be (one of the ship-wrecked suggest each of them tell his story ,to no avail) .No Hollywood touch except may be in the last final sequences .This is one of Tyrone Power's most important roles (with "the razor's edge" and "nightmare alley")and he reveals himself a great actor here :I dare you to like his skipper (and I dare you to hate him too).After you've seen the movie ,you will not be able to decide if he acted like a hero or a like a monster.A six months sentence may be not enough or might be too much,depending on whom you ask ,or on how YOU perceived the story.After watching it ,you will feel uneasy .Apart from Tyrone Power ,the cast is uniformly good ;pre-Messala Stephen Boyd particularly gives good support .If you are looking for something like "Poseidon adventure" ,you have to move on.Like this? try this..."Le Radeau De La Méduse" Iradj Azimi,1998

Michael_Elliott Abandon Ship (1957) *** 1/2 (out of 4) Extremely difficult to watch but masterfully made is the best way to sum up this drama that will have your on the edge of your seat from start to finish. A luxury liner strikes a derailed land mine, explodes and sinks in seven seconds. Twenty-seven people survive with Officer Holmes (Tyrone Power) given orders to take control of the lifeboat and see to it that as many people survive as possible. The boat is 1500 miles from land with a major storm coming and the lifeboat is holding at least twelve people too many so Holmes must pick and choose which ones can stay on the top and which must go overboard. This film, based on a true story, is rather hard to watch and I'm sure many people will find it too unpleasant and will eventually turn it off. The film takes place in the water from start to finish and the shaky camera-work and constant throbbing in the water will get some sea sick but those who stick to the movie will find a lot of other things to be disgusted by. I'd say I'm an expert at watching some ugly stuff but even my stomach was turning due to the subject matter here, which is handled in a very raw and realistic way. Having one man play God and pick who gets to live and die is a soul searching cause and will really have you thinking. The movie starts off as your typical disaster pic but instead of action we get thoughts of what we would do in that situation. You'll ask yourself if you could throw a woman overboard to die and if everyone should die or if a select group should have the right to live. A movie fan really has to ask themselves if a masterfully directed movie with great performances is worth watching when the subject matter itself is too ugly. I'm sure many will stay away from the film and I'm really not sure if I'd want to sit through it again but there's no doubt at how well made the thing is. I've always been hit and miss on Power but after seeing his performance here I've turned into an instant fan. He's completely believable in the role and extremely strong in putting his character's thoughts right up there for us to see without having to say a single word. Mai Zetterling, Stephen Boyd, Lloyd Nolan and the rest of the cast are great as well but there's no question as to whose film it is. It's rather amazing that this film isn't better known as many disaster movies remain quite popular today. I'm going to guess the reason this one here has been forgotten is simply because many watching it won't want to recommend it to anyone. I can only imagine how a film like this hit people when it was first released because as movie viewers today we've become quite jaded to violence. There's no real violence here but there's no question that the film and its subject matter are a lot more brutal to watch than any slasher or violence packed action film.

bkoganbing Seven Waves Away is the story of ship's officer played by Tyrone Power who to save the people in his charge after a shipwreck has to cast several of them adrift so the bulk can be saved. The only thing that 100% of those who view this harrowing tale is they pray that such a responsibility never falls on them.I'm not sure it was peace or war time that this story is supposed to have taken place. The ship is an ocean liner on a round the world cruise. But what happens is that it strikes a loose mine floating out in the south Atlantic, 1500 miles from the coast of Africa. I can't believe that people would be taking cruises in the middle of a war nor would any pleasure ships be sailing.As Tyrone Power describes it, the mine didn't just strike the ship in one spot. It went under the ship and bounced along the bottom and when it exploded, it cut the ship right in half. It was down faster than the Lusitania when it was torpedoed. Less than 10 minutes, no lifeboats launched, no distress signal sent.The boat they're on is the captain's ship to shore craft. It accommodates nine and twenty seven are in Power's charge as the senior ship's officer. Who's to live and who's to die?Mai Zetterling is on the boat, she's Power's girl friend, a fact noted with some resentment by others, but she's a nurse. Lloyd Nolan is another officer who sacrifices himself after telling Power what his duty is. Best performance in the film is that of Moira Lister who's a society woman and a swimmer. She's just full of cutting remarks about the 'brave captain'. The film lists Ted Richmond as producer, but a silent partner in the venture was Tyrone Power. His performance as the ship's officer with a double Job like burden is excellent. He was well past his youthful days as a romantic idol and it's sad to think he would be dead next year because any number of parts would have opened up for him. This one in fact should have netted him an Oscar nomination.Seven Waves Away is a film not for the faint hearted.