:When is Mutiny E • Permitted?

By CLARE SIMON FT' 1111111111111111MIlle 'Catholic Herald' Guest Critic In"1"""IMMIIIIII°
THE CAINE MUTTNY Odeon, Leicester Square Certificate U Director : Edward Dmytryk (In Technicolor)
IN what circumstances may a 'subordinate relieve his commanding officer of his duty? Only in the most exceptional and urgent circumstances, says Article 184 of the United States Navy Regulations. But just where is the dividing line between commendable action and mutiny?
This is the story of a split-second decision taken by Steve Maryk (Van Johnson), second-in-command aboard the Caine, a drama of character played out on a ship in peril in atyphoon of such dimensions that one critic at least felt violently seasick. . As in "The Cruel Sea" many of these finer shades of motive and background in the powerful novel on which "The Caine Mutiny" is based have been more or less lost in the film, but the main drama actually gains in intensity and force because the significant characters—the neurotic Capt. Queeg. the smooth-faced Lieut. Keefer—are isolated.
One of the most effective sCEDES must surely by now be as familiar to filmgoers as their own back gardens. It is Pearl Harbour, 1944.
THE NEW BROOM
"The Caine Mutiny" is ostensibly the story of one Willie Keith, a new ensign in the U.S. Navy. Willie. rather like the new boy at school, tries to curry favour with the other officers by running down the headmaster—the captain of his new ship.
The Caine is indeed in an appalling mess, with unshaven sailors scraping the rust off the sides and hanging out their dirty washing on the deck. But Capt. de Vriess (played with traditional bonhomie by Tom Tully) knows a thing or two about the Navy and gets on well enough with his men. He doesn't even resent Willie's new-broom attitude and congratulates him with a slight smile on the advent of a new captain.
Willie rubs his hands at the prospect of seeing the Caine turned into a real ship at last. Lieut. Maryk and Lieut. Keefer shake their heads forebodingly. arid Capt. Queeg (Humphrey Bogart) querulous, bloodshot. rolling two steel marbles idly in the palm of his hand, rich, unbroken ground for all the amateur psychologists in the Caine, prowls aboard. He is a captain who "goes by the book," makes petty regulations and conducts a mad search throughout the ship at dead of night for a quart of strawberries.
Keefer, the intelligent, malicious novelist (Fred MacMurray), suggests to the conscientious, likeable Maryk
that Queeg is insane, and then stands back and leaves Maryk at the moment of crisis to take the decision that could mean hanging for mutiny.
The outcome of Maryk's courtmartial and whether Queeg is found gtouibite. mad do not really matter. What does matter is the fact that there is
After the trial Greenwald (Jose Ferrer). Maryk's defending counsel, asks the Caine's officers: "Wasn't there a day when the captain asked you to support him and help him in the lonely, difficult task of command?"
And, looking straight at Keefer, he adds: "I only tried to get Maryk off be: o as u sn trial." e t rldlitcovered the wrong man ar ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE
On release : North-wee London Certificate U Director : Luis Burnie'
THE story of Robinson Crusoe I has been filmed five times already —a brave record for an undertaking that depends for its success on the skill of a single actor in the name part. This time, 28 years of despair and horror of solitude are depicted almost entirely in silent action by a brawny, resourceful Irishman, Dan O'Herlitty, as Crusoe, directed by a master of the film in which pity and savagery synthesise.
"Robinson Crusoe" drags appallingly for about three-quarters of its 90-minute run, but for the remaining quarter—roughly from the moment when Man Friday first leaves his footprint—terror and artistry take over. It is as though the terrible loneliness can make its full impact only when one sees Crusoe's reactions to the companionship of another man. Then come the moments of supreme pathos : Crusoe's sad journeys to the "Valley of Echoes" to shout "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want," and hear a human voice shouting back; the mad moment when he begins to talk to the ants; the parrot who goes on calling the dog's name after the dog has died. Yet even in the wilderness is a sense of the hand of God.
The film has its touches of slightly macabre humour. Crusoe provides the best laugh when, watching Friday polishing his pots and pans, he reflects : "After so many years how delightful to have a servant again." There's a note of satire, ton, in the way in which one man, working alone, contrives to turn a perfectly good desert island into a passable imitation of Whipsnade Zoo with enclosures for the wild goats and a cage for the parrot. All in all, a film for the desert island addict and for people who like jungle scenery—it was shot in Mexico. Dan O'Herlihy, shaky at first, recovers to reveal the power of solitude working on the mind of man. James Fernandez makes of Friday an attractive wild animal. Between them these two actors carry a film which, told in straightforward narrative, calls for hard work on the part of an audience hut which will, I think, be remembered.