[I. M. Trenchant]

Caine would likely be the first to admit that he has been in some turkeys, but his choice of his screen name (his birth name is Maurice Micklewhite) shows that he is not just another veteran actor grousing about the limited material available to him at his present age. As a young and aspiring actor he felt very deeply about the same aspects of film-making.

Caine chose the screen surname Caine because he felt so strongly about the excellence of the film The Caine Mutiny, which was based on Herman Wouk's novel of the same name. The Caine Mutiny is one of the best-ever screen adaptations of a novel, and its featured players, in addition to Bogie, who may have demonstrated his abilities as an actor better in this film than in any other he ever made (he was the anti-Bogie in this one), were never, in my opinion, better in any of their other films: Fred MacMurray, Van Johnson and Jose Ferrer -- probably because the script and characterization they were given in The Caine Mutiny were of surpassing excellence.

Made in the mid-1950s, the screenplay of The Caine Mutiny departed from Wouk's novel in one very significant particular: the novel placed heavy emphasis on antiSemitism. As good as it was, the film might bear a remake in which the theme about antiSemitism is retained. It would have a choice part for Michael Caine, playing either Queeg, or the Caine's captain who is relaced by Queeg as skipper of the good ship Caine at the beginning of the film and who replaces Queeg as the skipper of the Caine at the end of the film. As with the other featured players in the original film, Tom Tully, who played this latter part, was probably never better in any other film that he made.

It would be an oversight to fail to mention that the producer of the film (Stanley Kramer) and the director (Edward Dmytryk, who, like Elia Kazan, co-operated with HUAC) have few if any equals in to-day's Hollywood.

[ByDesign]

The Caine Mutiny is a fantastic movie, it's been on the cable channels recently, and it's worth watching again and again. Bogie was incredible in that part. Some parts of the film are flawed, like Robert Francis' flat acting, and the treacley love scenes, but that movie made me aware of Jose Ferrer, who is excellent.

It's like Mr. Roberts, one of my all time favorite movies. They just don't write them like that anymore. Sure, there's more freedom to have more realistic language and behavior (the rowdy shore leave scenes alone would be a nirvanah for today's directors), but they have things modern movies rarely have: a morality.