Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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54 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent adaptation of Katherine Anne Porter novel, December 1, 1998
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.
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27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Looking For Fulfillment and Purpose, August 18, 2002
The setting of this tale is a ship en route from Mexico to Germany in 1933, carrying a disparate group of people, many of whom are unhappy or unfulfilled, living in a time of great political uncertainty. Oskar Werner is the ship's doctor who considers his life a failure and dull, until he meets drug-addicted Simone Signoret, on her way to political imprisonment. They are the standout performers in this film, delivering heartfelt and touching performances, sometimes just needing a knowing glance to communicate so much. Vivien Leigh is terrific as a southern divorcee, bitter about life, men, and marriage, who has some strange encounters aboard, especially with Lee Marvin, an aging ex-athlete who never achieved the glory he wanted. Jose Ferrer pulls out all the stops as an anti-Semitic Nazi sympathizer, who stirs up trouble and alienates almost everyone with his crassness and attitude. George Segal and Elizabeth Ashley star as lovers at odds with each other, but their part of the story is the least interesting. Michael Dunn as a philosophic dwarf and Heinz Ruhmann as a tolerant, kindly Jew also contribute good performances, and if you look carefully, you will also see Kaaren Verne, an actress from Warner Brothers' heyday (All Through The Night, Kings Row) in the role of an insecure girl's mother. The film is fairly long, but it moves along well, since most of the characters are so interestingly drawn and acted, and there is also a good amount of action on board as people go through various crises. Credit goes to director Stanley Kramer for balancing the storyline and ensemble cast so well, and for creating an effective atmosphere that reflects the mood and the real sense of the world at that time in history just before so much would change. It's a classy film.
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A blue ribbon film with excellent character portrayals, April 2, 2000
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!
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