Richard Chatten Marlene Dietrich is the only woman on board a ship full of sex-starved human detritus! With a plot like that and this director how can you possibly fail?Quite easily it turns out. This might have clocked in at a satisfactory 80 minutes, but instead the cast for the most part aimlessly mill about for over two hours. Dietrich's role is effectively a sub-plot; she only comes aboard over a third of the way in, and it then takes another half-hour for the crew to find out. She thereafter proves a disappointingly passive heroine as the crew career about in search of her, and her final appearance in the film is in extreme long shot. The big close-up at the end instead goes to the resourceful ship's cook, Vladimir Sokoloff, who has admittedly earned it by giving the film's best performance.

Edgar Soberon Torchia After learning about the importance of Maurice Tourneur in the history of cinema (and making the connection between images of "La main du diable" and its creator) I have watched a few of his silent and sound films, which were remarkable works for their times and still impressive in ours. A recent viewing was his film adaptation of a novel by Greek author Frenzos Kerzemen (or Franzos Keremen, as listed here). It was the beginning of Tourneur's third and last phase of his career as director, when he returned to his native France, after growing dissatisfied with the kind of films made by American big studios. Without reading the novel, it is difficult to know if the plot follows the literary work or if it was changed by Tourneur in his screenplay, for in the end it turns into a rose-colored endorsement of bourgeois respectability, after the striking first two acts taking place in a German sea port, in New York and almost entirely aboard the title ship. According to conventions of dramatic action, none of the characters really change the way we usually refer to alterations in life or manner: there are few radical actions or signs of profound change of perspective in all characters. Everything is mostly done under control, even when the story told is the most violent. American doctor William Cheyne (handsome British actor Robin Irvine, who died young at 32) is arguably the protagonist, the traditional hero and savior, while the fugitive convict Morains (Gaston Modot, who would become an immortal icon of crazy love in Buñuel's "L'age d'or") is his nemesis. Ethel Marley (Marlene Dietrich) is an American socialite in distress, who crashes her plane in the Atlantic Ocean and is rescued by Dr. Cheyne, falling in love; and Grischa (Vladimir Sokoloff) is the cook of the ship, who will play a key role in the resolution. What they go through, as scripted by Tourneur and beautifully photographed by Nicolas Farkas, is startling. Morains asks Captain Fernando Vela (Fritz Kortner) to take him to Brazil in his ship Galatea. Vela (a mean villain too) specializes in helping fugitive smugglers, pirates, killers, thieves, convicts and the like to get out of Germany. They become his crew and he treats them really bad until they reach their destiny. Dr. Cheyne joins the Galatea by accident, when he goes to the ship to help a wounded sailor, without noticing when it weighs anchor. Next Ethel secretly comes aboard, then Cap. Vela's pet is killed, the crew revolts against him and after the mutiny a chain of events follows, motivated by lust, greed, hatred and pure vileness. After these scenes the third act comes as a sort of sell-out: I personally would have preferred to see the few decent characters find a resolution inside the ship, not with outside help, but considering that so many crooks were put together in a single set, it is somehow understandable. A long film, running more than two hours, it gives space to actors to find gestures, gazes and expressions to tell the story without the need of many intertitles, while the viewer has more time to appreciate the magnificent images created by Farkas and Tourneur, who would go on to make a few more masterpieces before his retirement. Edited by Jacques Tourneur.

JohnHowardReid A long movie -- the excellent Grapevine DVD runs 122 minutes -- but literally every frame is utterly fascinating. Director Maurice Tourneur obviously had an enormous budget at his disposal and has spared no expense in bringing this dark story to the screen. A "film noir" if ever there was one, a great deal of the movie is set in the shadows -- shadows which are brilliantly contrasted with the rescue ship's piercing lights. The sets too are all cleverly designed to highlight this same contrast between Good and Evil. Until he is overthrown, Fritz Kortner dominates the movie as the utterly inhuman captain, a Lucifer in a hell of devils.We keep waiting for Dietrich and wondering how on earth she will fit into the story, until she finally appears. She then becomes the center of our attention, pushing the nominal hero, somewhat bland Robin Irvine, further into the sidelines. As for Vladimir Sokoloff, he has an important role to play at the climax, but he is not all that active in the rest of the film. In fact, we wonder why some half-baked American publicist titled the movie, "Grischa the Cook", instead of translating the German title, "The Ship of Lost Men" or using a title that would highlight Dietrich's role. She certainly bears watching, In fact she is wonderful in what is actually a character role!

boblipton Tourneur's last silent movie shows his full command of the silent film grammar -- much of which he invented -- in his beautiful compositions and still camera, punctuated for excellent effect by purposeful moving and process shots. He never uses the camera to make the viewer gasp at his brilliance, but only to punctuate a psychological point or improve the film's pace.The story, from the novel by Franzos Keremen, is a commentary on Jack London's SEA WOLF. London's Wolf Larsen is a Nietzschean philosopher. The captain, in this movie, is a schemer among brutes -- a correction to London's drunken maunderings that might have served humanity better. It is the gentle cook, played by Vladimir Sokoloff that is the real hero of the story after the crew mutinies and kills the ship's master.The movie also stars Marlene Dietrich, a few months before von Sternberg supposedly plucked her from obscurity. She looks a lot like Claudette Colbert in this movie and shows her command of film acting already. Very highly recommended.