IMDb RATING
6.6/10
3.9K
YOUR RATING
Third Officer Tom Merriam accuses Captain Will Stone of being a homicidal maniac, but no one believes him.Third Officer Tom Merriam accuses Captain Will Stone of being a homicidal maniac, but no one believes him.Third Officer Tom Merriam accuses Captain Will Stone of being a homicidal maniac, but no one believes him.
- Awards
- 2 nominations
Robert Bice
- Raphael
- (uncredited)
Eddie Borden
- Crew Member
- (uncredited)
John Burford
- Crew Member
- (uncredited)
Tom Burton
- William Benson
- (uncredited)
Harry Clay
- Tom McCall
- (uncredited)
Alec Craig
- Blind Beggar
- (uncredited)
Boyd Davis
- Charles Roberts
- (uncredited)
George DeNormand
- John Corbin
- (uncredited)
Cliff Edwards
- Officer
- (uncredited)
Skelton Knaggs
- Finn
- (uncredited)
Mike Lally
- Crew Member
- (uncredited)
Sir Lancelot
- Billy Radd
- (uncredited)
Nolan Leary
- Stenographer
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaRKO had built an expensive ship set for their 1938 production Pacific Liner (1939). Val Lewton was given instructions to come up with a film that could use the still-existing set. According to Robert Wise, a longtime collaborator with Lewton, it was this set that gave Lewton the idea for the film. "He would find what we call a 'standing set,' and then tailor his script to the set, whatever it was. That's how he made The Ghost Ship. He walked onto a set and saw a tanker, then cooked up the idea for this ship with a murderous captain." One scholar has suggested that Lewton accepted the assignment in part because, as an amateur sailor himself, the ship captain's behavior mirrored Lewton's own views on how to manage a ship, but also because Lewton saw the plot as a way of criticizing his micro-managing superiors at RKO. The budget, as with all of Lewton's films, was set at $150,000.
- GoofsOne shot of the boat traveling toward camera shows the name of the boat on the bow is backwards. The backwards name reads Venture, indicating it's a shot reused from King Kong (1933) that has been horizontally flipped.
- ConnectionsEdited from King Kong (1933)
Featured review
Minimalist paranoid thriller
"The Ghost Ship" has Russell Wade as a naval captain, Tom, who boards a ship in San Pedro, only to find that something seems odd about the captain, Will Stone. Strange occurrences plague his time on the sea, and soon Tom becomes convinced that the captain is a homicidal maniac who has the entire crew under his thumb.
This downbeat and tightly-written psychological thriller was Mark Robson's second collaboration with producer Val Lewton, the first being the phenomenal Satanic horror noir "The Seventh Victim". This film feels lighter in tone than the former and packs a bit less of a punch— it is free from the nihilistic streak of "The Seventh Victim," though it still implements a fair amount of commentary on matters such as the nature of authority and questions about power. The more philosophical bits of dialogue feel somewhat hokey, though they are relatively few and far between.
Looked at from a contemporary standpoint, it's a film that may have been ahead of its time, as it stands as an early example of the "paranoid protagonist" trope, in which the audience comes to question the reliability of the character's potentially unfounded fears about a person or place. As Tom's fears of the captain and his wielding of power grow, the reliability of his perspective is called into question; Robson screenwriter Donald Clarke play up this tension magnificently. Wade is a solid sympathetic protagonist, while Richard Dix is fittingly aloof. The dialogue between the two ranges from somewhat weak to fantastic, but in general, they play off one another nicely.
The film has a thrilling, unexpectedly violent and grim finale, which punctuates what is overall a mellow psychological drama. Overall, "The Ghost Ship" is a modest but well-made thriller; while it's not one of Lewton's greatest collaborations, it's a claustrophobic, fine film that is lifted up by atmospheric set pieces, some very nicely-orchestrate scenes, and a consistent feeling of unrelenting paranoia. 7/10.
This downbeat and tightly-written psychological thriller was Mark Robson's second collaboration with producer Val Lewton, the first being the phenomenal Satanic horror noir "The Seventh Victim". This film feels lighter in tone than the former and packs a bit less of a punch— it is free from the nihilistic streak of "The Seventh Victim," though it still implements a fair amount of commentary on matters such as the nature of authority and questions about power. The more philosophical bits of dialogue feel somewhat hokey, though they are relatively few and far between.
Looked at from a contemporary standpoint, it's a film that may have been ahead of its time, as it stands as an early example of the "paranoid protagonist" trope, in which the audience comes to question the reliability of the character's potentially unfounded fears about a person or place. As Tom's fears of the captain and his wielding of power grow, the reliability of his perspective is called into question; Robson screenwriter Donald Clarke play up this tension magnificently. Wade is a solid sympathetic protagonist, while Richard Dix is fittingly aloof. The dialogue between the two ranges from somewhat weak to fantastic, but in general, they play off one another nicely.
The film has a thrilling, unexpectedly violent and grim finale, which punctuates what is overall a mellow psychological drama. Overall, "The Ghost Ship" is a modest but well-made thriller; while it's not one of Lewton's greatest collaborations, it's a claustrophobic, fine film that is lifted up by atmospheric set pieces, some very nicely-orchestrate scenes, and a consistent feeling of unrelenting paranoia. 7/10.
- drownsoda90
- Feb 8, 2017
- Permalink
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $150,000 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 9 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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