Ship of Fools

A shipload of travellers going from Vera Cruz, Spain to Germany near the start of WW2 have various personal and political problems. Based on a novel by Katherine Anne Porter and directed by Stanley Kramer. Much of the film focuses on the problems of the "haves."


Mrs. Treadwell is an aging divorcee who is becoming a drunk (Vivien Leigh, playing ten years younger than she was, I believe this was her last film). She is trying to deny her age and seeks to find comfort in a man's arms.

Bill Tenny is a loudmouth who wants everything his own way (Lee Marvin). This includes forcing a flamenco dancer to have sex with him (the dancers seem to be prostitution ring as well).

A Contessa (Simone Signoret) has had many sleepless nights and has become dependent on sleeping pills. This has become so bad she asks the ship doctor (Oskar Werner) for a refill. Seeing the signs of a drug habit, he instead offers to help her get out of her dependence. They also begin to find solace with each other since both have a loneliness they don't want to address. This is the best and most mature and well-written of the storylines. Both of these actors were nominated for an Academy Award. I would say this is a star-crossed romance, although deep down both characters seem to know it cannot be.

A snooty German general (Jose Ferrar) speaks down to the Jews he encounters on the ship. He seems oblivious or doesn't care that he is an anti-semite.

Others are a starving artist and his girlfriend (George Segal, Elizabeth Ashley); he identifies with the struggles of the Spanish masses below decks, appreciating their contributions to society, while she can only see their dirtiness and low class. This divides them. I found his character at the start quite interesting, when he was interacing with the Spanish laborers down below. When it moved more to his arguments with his girlfriend, this story was less interesting to me.

A couple with a teen daughter still treats her like a child, yet she wants to be treated as a woman. She comes of age on the trip, and from what I can tell has a sexual awakening as well. The variety of sexual topics that came up in this movie were interesting.

A young man travelling with his aged and wheelchair bound father is sullen because the father has kept the purse strings tight his whole life. The son becomes more and more antagonistic, especially when one of the flamenco dancers won't "date" him because he has no money.

A German dwarf (American actor Michael Dunn, also nominated) serves as sort of a Greek chorus. He introduces and closes the film and speaks to the audience directly in these bits. In the rest of the film, he is a passenger who hangs out mostly with another German and they act as observers and commenters on the lives of the others on board.

There is open anti-semitism, racism, class distinctions, etc. in various levels among the characters. No one finds the paradise or perfect life they are seeking for, and in fact some meet their doom at the end of the trip.

Reading up on the awards for this film, I see it won for black and white cinematography and art direction, which means the Oscars must also have had a categories for color films, which I did not know (so color films must have been fairly new at thist ime). I agree that the three Oscar nominated actors were very good in their roles.