Post by nipkowdisc on Dec 28, 2022 4:11:07 GMT
I saw this once on an independent station in my viewing area and after watching it last nite on youtube I know why it has almost never been shown on TV. it stinks. Barry Sullivan could have given a truly great performance as wolf larsen but there was too much stacked against him doing so. a lousy script and direction by some prong named Harmon Jones. whatz the point of doing a remake of the sea wolf if you're not gonna try? Peter Graves is van weyden picked up by Ghost in a lifeboat. some crewmember tells him not to expect Larsen to drop him off in san francisco. van weyden offers to pay him but Larsen whacks him across the jaw. all of Barry Sullivan's efforts to embue his performance as Larsen with brutality and sadism fall flat because of the poor direction and the music score by paul dunlap which is blaring in your ears throughout and is too distracting and not very good either. this movie is on youtube but the picture quality ain't too good. too bright and too contrasty more bright than contrasty. van weyden starts learning the ropes in the mess under the auspices of cook muckridge who is no better than a petty crook. Larsen has fun at the expense of sailor jim leach and some other guy whom he sends aloft just for the hell of it. about this time leach and this other guy who insists Larsen call him by his name, larsen doesn't, try to murder him on deck. they throw Larsen in the drink but he saves himself by grabbing a rope. van weyden helps him back on board and Larsen knows he wasn't involved because he is too civilized for such an act. earlier prior to this attempt on Larsen's life he and van weyden had talked rather philosophically in Larsen's cabin. after seeing van weyden peering into one of his books on poetry he tells van weyden to read him some. afterwards Larsen calls it nonsense and van weyden disagrees. and then Larsen tells van weyden something of his past how he was brutalized by violent men when he was a young man in the british merchant marines which instilled in him a hardness and unsympathy for humanity. after the attempt on his life he goes accompanied by van weyden down into the crew's bunks looking for the guilty parties. later on a crewmember approaches van weyden and tells him that Leach and his accomplice have to get off the ship in a boat because when Larsen learns they're the ones who tried to kill him they'll be dead men. when Larsen learns the two have fled the ship he orders an end to the seal hunting and orders the ship to sail a search pattern knowing they will eventually come upon the doomed men. when they in their boat are sighted Larsen ostensibly assures van weyden that he isn't going to lay a hand on them...he then runs over the two of them in their boat with Ghost. like he said he didn't touch them. this is a very funny guy ha ha. next Ghost picks up two survivors in a boat a man and a woman. the woman faints from exhaustion once aboard. later dining with the captain Larsen tells her to forget about any dreams of stardom in a san francisco saloon hall....and besides he ain't going that way. he then tells her that he will provide her with some clothing once belonging to some japanese "island girls" he once knew. he stranded them on a tropical island to decrease their life expectancy. finally the crew makes their move against Larsen. oh, I forgot to mention something. earlier Wolf Larsen feeling that the cook muckridge had gone on much too long without a bath encourages his crew to give him one in the drink. a shark shows up and muckridge is minus a foot. Larsen sez it was an accident. anyway, the crew finally moves against Larsen but they don't kill him as a promise to van weyden. they chain him in a cabin with manacles. after leaving him there muckridge shows up with a knife wanting revenge for his foot. the reason Larsen was so easily overpowered is because he is now totally blind from his most recent headache. muckridge sez he thinks he'll start with Larsen's eyes. now get this. Larsen actually sez rather of matter of factly "go ahead they're of no use to me". but then Larsen suggests that muckridge start with a foot. he stupidly complies. Larsen then strangulates em with his legs. freeing himself from his manacles Larsen blindly stumbles his way upwards to the topside where he is again once and for all overpowered and killed. next day van weyden sez "cast his body into the sea" and dumps the expired sadist into the brine. end of story. just wanna say that the actress who played the girl looked like a bargain basement Lauren Bacall with a foreign accent. I think she went on to marry Barry Sullivan. let me close by saying that Peter Graves gives a fairly good performance as van weyden.
