Product Details

• Actors: Vivien Leigh, Simone Signoret, José Ferrer, Lee Marvin, Oskar Werner
• Directors: Stanley Kramer
• Writers: Abby Mann, Katherine Anne Porter
• Producers: Stanley Kramer
• Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Language: English, German, Spanish
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Columbia Pictures Corporation
• VHS Release Date: September 26, 1997
• Run Time: 149 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302305942
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #187,794 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

An all-star drama in the grandest of Hollywood traditions, Ship of Fools is now a glossy, Oscar®-nominated relic from a bygone era, when actors were valued more than special effects. "Prestige" is the keyword in describing this high-toned Stanley Kramer production, and the passage of time brings the pros and cons of Kramer's filmmaking into stark relief. In adapting Katherine Anne Porter's acclaimed novel set aboard a German liner sailing from Mexico to Germany, Kramer and screenwriter Abby Mann (who shifted the story from 1931 to 1933) attempted to display the oncoming horror of Nazi Germany in microcosm, as represented by the ship's colorful variety of passengers, including maritally combative artists (George Segal, Elizabeth Ashley); a has-been baseball star (Lee Marvin); a pair of illicit lovers (Oskar Werner, Simone Signoret); a despondent divorcée (Vivien Leigh, shockingly garish in her final film); and several others who play symbolic roles with varying degrees of obviousness. Porter's potent themes are somewhat deflated by Kramer's pompous, heavy-handed approach, but powerful acting remains. Having lost what relevance it had in 1965, Ship of Fools is still fascinating as a showcase for well-drawn characters (including an observant dwarf, played by the late, great Michael Dunn) whose inner lives and outward interactions reflect a turbulent world irrevocably headed for war. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

65 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent adaptation of Katherine Anne Porter novel, December 1, 1998

By 

Joseph C. Jones (Tampa, FL United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ship of Fools [VHS] (VHS Tape)

A stunning, powerful examination of how racism and xenophopia, if unchecked, can overtake society, Ship of Fools is set aboard a German liner sailing from Mexico to Bemerhaven just after the Nazis have taken over. Among the passengers are Vivien Leigh as an embittered divorcee, Lee Marvin as a down-on-his-luck baseball player, George Segal and Elizabeth Ashley as an artist and his lover, Jose Ferrer as a vociferous anti-Semite, Simone Signoret as a Contessa having an affair with ship's doctor Oskar Werner, and Michael Dunn as Greek Chorus. With few exceptions, the entire cast is terrific. Leigh, in her last film, seemingly assimilated all the heartache of her life into this role, and her Charleston near the end is a highlight. The standouts, in my opinion, are Signoret and Werner; they inject their love affair, obviously doomed from the start, with an emotionalism that is genuinely heartbreaking. Ship of Fools is undeniably Stanley Kramer's finest hour as a director, though, ironically, he was passed over for an Oscar nomination, despite a Best Picture nomination. Ship of Fools is required viewing, particularly for those wanting to find some reason for World War II and the Holocaust.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A blue ribbon film with excellent character portrayals, April 2, 2000

By 

vegan miss "vegan miss" (Charlotte, NC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ship of Fools [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Given its setting of sundry characters en route to Germany from Mexico, this film could have easily degenerated into something predictable, mawkish and trite. Instead, it is a truly fabulous cinematic work, with flesh-and-blood characers whose various predicaments, interwoven against the burgeoning Nazi sentiment of the early 1930s, grab the viewer from the very start. As Glocken, the "little person" who delivers a welcoming narrative, said: there's a ball player, a doctor, dog lovers, emancipated ladies and others whose assorted problems unravel themselves and somehow get resolved through the weeks of the sea journey. Simone Signoret and Oskar Werner deliver bravura performances as doomed lovers, while middle-aged disillusioned socialite Vivien Leigh turns in a wonderfully tart portrayal of a closet romantic hidden beneath a sarcastic facade. Lee Marvin is also good as a rough, contemptible athlete whose unmannerly words and actions manage to alienate just about everone on board. The film's theme music, while limited to a few scenes, is also hauntingly poignant. Don't miss this one!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Shipboard Microcosm Ignited by Werner and Signoret, May 7, 2005

By 

Ed Uyeshima (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ship of Fools (DVD)

An ocean liner in a movie usually signals some impending disaster as our cinematic sensibilities have become accustomed to special-effects-laden epics like "The Poseidon Adventure" and "Titanic". That's what probably makes director Stanley Kramer's 1965 "Ship of Fools" look all the more old-fashioned with its omnibus international cast and heavy emphasis on dialogue, and neither an iceberg nor a tidal wave to be seen within its lengthy 149-minute running time. In fact, the whole point of the film is to show a diverse group of people share a 1933 voyage between Veracruz and Bremerhaven in the midst of the rise of the Third Reich in Germany. Consequently the film focuses on messages of political intolerance, anti-Semitism, racism and class distinctions. It all sounds heavy, which fits snugly into Kramer's oeuvre, but actually what still resonates after forty years is a literate script by the estimable Abby Mann and the presence of well-cast actors, some quite exceptional in their roles.

Vivien Leigh is the nominal star, but she doesn't dominate the story. Looking gaunt and acting especially brittle, she gives age-fearing Mary Treadwell a Tennessee Williams makeover complete with a scene of desperate drunkenness beginning with an impromptu Charleston and ending with a merciless beating of Lee Marvin's even more drunken character with her shoe. Leigh's work was so infrequent at the time that this sadly became her last film. Marvin effectively plays Bill Tenny, an obnoxious Texan reliving his baseball glory days and lumbering around the ship looking for women. His best scene is in an empty dining room with Carl Glocken, embodied by the superb Michael Dunn, the story's narrator and an erudite man who happens to be a dwarf (a "sawed-off intellectual" according to Tenny). José Ferrer portrays an abrasive anti-Semitic publisher with his typical stentorian fervor, who ironically has to share a cabin with Jewish salesman Julius Lowenthal, played with contrasting gentility by Heinz Rühmann. Their scenes are rather comical until they come to bond, and Lowenthal spouts his Pollyanna view of the fate of the Jews in Germany. A very young and brooding George Segal and an ingenuous Elizabeth Ashley play David and Jenny, lovers conflicted about their differing priorities.

But best of all are the mature illicit lovers, Oskar Werner as Schumann, the married, ailing ship's doctor and Simone Signoret as La Condesa, the drug-addicted woman en route to a Cuban prison for her role in leading Mexicans to a social uprising. Their scenes together elevate the film into something quite remarkable as their relationship moves from hesitant, almost light-hearted seduction to deep-seeded love, all performed with emotional economy that makes their inevitable parting even more painful to watch. Werner bares Schumann's soul with precision until his final breath, and Signoret combines her unique blend of world-weariness and subtle coquettishness into a morally ambiguous yet magnetic character. Kramer paces the film well, and he also has some nice cinematic shots, like the sight of hundreds of Cuban refugees awaiting the ship to dock, but the constant use of fake backdrops lends an unwelcome staginess to the proceedings. All in all, this is a worthwhile journey to take, in particular, to see Werner and Signoret at their zenith.