After a massive luxury liner sinks into the ocean, the ship's officer must command a rickety lifeboat, built for only nine, that is stuffed with over twenty desperate and injured passengers. As a hurricane approaches and the many wounded passengers struggle for life, difficult decisions must be made about who will remain on the boat and who must be cast to the sea in order to give others the chance to survive.
Tyrone Power Mai Zetterling Lloyd Nolan Stephen Boyd Moira Lister James Hayter Marie Lohr Finlay Currie John Stratton Victor Maddern Eddie Byrne Noel Willman Moultrie Kelsall Gordon Jackson Orlando Martins Ferdy Mayne Jill Melford Clare Austin Clive Morton Danny Green Laurence Naismith Sheila Manahan John Gray David Barry Austin Trevor Derek Sydney Colin Broadley
Abandon Ship!, Seven Waves Away, Seven Days from Now, La settima onda, El mar no perdona, Pour que les autres vivent, Die Angst hat tausend Namen, Abandoneu el vaixell, 弃船
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Abandon Ship (following a group of disparate people on a lifeboat who have to take drastic measures after their ship sinks) was based on a true story, and it’s absolutely gripping to see tensions mount among the survivors as it becomes harder and harder to keep everyone aboard.
It tackles some difficult questions in the central struggle of who gets to stay on—and who needs to be sacrificed, a wide variety of characters given the space to interact with each other for a deeply intimate, intense psychological drama that puts you right in the middle.
This plays like an even more fraught version of Lifeboat, Tyrone Power shining in one of his last (and most complex) roles as a de…
Aggravating, exhausting, bone-chilling, Such is the voyage of the small vessel carrying a wreck's survivors in Abandon Ship, a Columbia drama from writer/director Richard Sale that stars Tyrone Power in one of his final roles. It's a truly incredible performance, although considering how much stressful activity he endures as the captain of this sick and tired group (especially the swimming in choppy waters), it's frankly pretty surprising that he didn't die on this film's set rather than on Solomon and Sheba.
In the story's first minute, we learn the swift and brutal fate of the SS Crescent Star: it struck a freshly surfaced mine (presumably from some past war), causing the luxury liner to sink into the Atlantic Ocean in…
I had no idea this would be so intense or raise such troubling ethical issues. On one level, it's a disaster film about a luxury ocean liner that goes down at sea. But all the action occurs after the ship has sunk, as we focus on an overcrowded lifeboat. And in particular the decisions that are made about how stays and who gets tossed aside in order that some survive.
At first, one would imagine this to be like Hitchcock's "Lifeboat". But it's much more of a thriller with complex moral themes. The boat is built for 9 (with 12 absolute max). But it has total of 26, including a number who are in the water hanging off the side.…
still reeling from the opening scene in which tyrone power strips off his shirt in the middle of the open ocean and uses it as a whip to scare away a shark.
This is one of the bleakest films I've ever seen. Presumably over a thousand people have already died before we see the few survivors and their story is utterly miserable. You finally get to the end and think that's the end of the misery but some on screen text piles it on one more time. I'm not really sure what the purpose of this film was unless it was 'You think you've got it bad?'. It's strangely watchable but plan in something fun afterwards as it's a real downer.
Whoa! Disaster movie, a fifties update of Lifeboat, retooled for the McCarthy era with a frightening authoritarian streak superimposed on the survival action -- and in the end, a v.o. narrator goes full Brechtian, explicitly asking the audience to question what they've seen and decide whether Tyrone Power was justified in his command decisions as leader of the castaways. Just how sliding-into-fascism was USA in the late 50s? I've been turning up a handful of movies that make it look worse than I would have imagined.
Earlier this year, I came across a review for Abandon Ship, which at the time, I had never heard of before. This singular review for what was a relatively obscure film (going by its ratings) convinced me it was worth checking out. By all means, it sounded like a captivating, tense work of film that would be worthwhile in viewing. While I can say that it was worth watching, I can’t say it was flawless. I like it. I find it to be good, but it’s got a couple of areas that cause it to teeter, but never truly sink.
For starters, I think its ensemble cast do a fairly good job, all things considered. There’s plenty of odd line…
An underseen gem. Pretty intense. A friend of mine aptly called it "LIFEBOAT with balls". Worth tracking down. Sadly not yet on DVD.
Why they didn’t just push him overboard at the 45 minute mark simply baffles me
2023 FALLing into a dumpster fire challenge: a movie with sharks.
film lodge scavenger hunt prompt #30. starring one of my most watched actors (tyrone power).
Watched this in honor of the 65th anniversary of Tyrone Power's passing and was very surprised at how incredible his performance was since I don't hear anyone talking about this movie in relation to him, or at all in general.
I wasn't as into the movie itself as I wanted to be, although I was taken aback by the heavy subject matter and just how wet, grimy, and overall unpleasant it was - so it delivered 100% on that front.
The main weakness for me was the cast, unfortunately, who weren't compelling enough presences…
stark, ruthless, and intense survival movie that presents one “fascinating moral problem” after another (to quote one of our desperate survivors) without giving easy answers
while it may be too bleak for general consumption (but is perfect for me), it’s still wild that this sank into relative obscurity because—and I say this with no disrespect to Hitch—this cooks much harder than the more celebrated and better-known Lifeboat
Lordy, that was GRIM. You’ve got to push past some 1950s overacting (I would have thrown Moira Lister overboard within minutes) but stick with it, because this gets super intense fast and is well worth the very wet journey. Tyrone Power is superb as the officer in charge, faced with decisions no one should have to make. The effects were solid, leaving you in no doubt of their very real peril. More superficially… definitive ranking of 1950s stars in tight t-shirts? 1. Marlon Brando, A Streetcar Named Desire 2. Tyrone Power, Abandon Ship 3. Just watch 1 or 2 again.
