The Last Voyage
Encyclopedia
The Last Voyage is a 1960
American
disaster film
written and directed by Andrew L. Stone
. It stars Robert Stack
and Dorothy Malone
.
The screenplay centers on the sinking of an aged ocean liner
in the Pacific Ocean
following an explosion in the boiler room. There are some plot similarities to the disaster involving the Italian liner SS Andrea Doria
, which sank after a collision four years earlier.
Laurie and Cliff Henderson and their daughter Jill are relocating to Tokyo
and decide to sail to Japan
on board the ship. A fire in the boiler room is extinguished quickly, but not before several safety valves have been fused shut. When Chief Engineer Pringle attempts to open one of them, a huge explosion rips through the boiler room and the many decks situated above it, killing him and some of the passengers and trapping Laurie under a steel beam in her stateroom, in addition to causing widespread panic, and opening a huge hole in the side of the ship.
Cliff runs back to Laurie's stateroom and finds that he can't get her out alone, he then finds Jill trapped on the other side of the room. He tries to use a shattered piece of the bed to get to the other side, but it falls through the huge hole caused by the explosion. Third Officer Osborne believes that the crew should start unloading passengers into the lifeboats, but Captain Robert Adams is reluctant, as he's never lost a ship. He tries to reassure passengers that they are in no immediate danger but this doesn't help calm them. Cliff finally manages to rescue Jill by using a board to have her crawl across the hole.
Down in the boiler room, Second Engineer Walsh reports to the captain that a seam to the bulkhead has broken away. Cliff tries to get the help of a steward, but to no avail. A passenger states that he overheard his conversation, and wants to help.
Osborne reports that the boiler room is now half-full. The Claridon then begins to transmit an SOS, on orders of Captain Adams. Cliff and a few other men return to the stateroom to try and help Laurie, but find they need a torch.
The carpenter reports to the crew that the boiler room is now two-thirds full. To make matters worse, Walsh doesn't know how long the bulkhead will last. The captain makes an announcement to the passengers to put on their lifejackets. This is more reason to panic. The lifeboats then begin launching.
Cliff finds a torch, and tries to rush back to Laurie with the help of crewman Hank Lawson. Walsh reports that if one more strut breaks, the ship will sink.
The boiler room then floods, causing the ship to sink lower. Also, a second explosion happens on the boatdeck. When Cliff and Lawson are down in the dining room, it too, floods, causing water to burst through the large windows.
The captain is looking at his promotion letter to commodore
of the line when he is killed after a smokestack falls upon him. Meanwhile, Cliff finally helps to get Laurie out from under the steel beam with the help of crewmen Lawson and Walsh. They get up to the boatdeck along with Second Engineer Walsh. Cliff, Laurie, Jill and Hank jump into the water and find a lifeboat just as the ship sinks. Second Engineer Walsh is shown swimming away, and the narrator concludes with "This was the death of the steamship Claridon, this was her last voyage."
off the coast of England, but instead it was filmed almost entirely in the Sea of Japan
off the coast of Osaka
. The ship used in the film was the legendary French
luxury liner SS Ile de France
, which had been in service from 1927 until 1959, when it was sold to a Japan
ese scrapyard. Her former owners initially attempted to block Stone's rental of the ship (for $1.5 million), but withdrew their opposition when MGM agreed not to identify the vessel by its original name when publicizing the film.
The ship was towed to shallow waters, where jets of water shot onto the ship from fireboats flooded forward compartments and made it appear she was sinking by the bow. Her forward funnel was sent crashing into the deckhouse and her Art Deco
interiors were destroyed by explosives and/or flooded. Because there were too many poisonous jellyfish in the Sea of Japan, the final lifeboat scene was filmed in Santa Monica, California
. In his autobiography Straight Shooting, Robert Stack
recalled, "No special effects for Andy [Stone]; he actually planned to destroy a liner and photograph the process. Thus began a film called The Last Voyage, which . . . for yours truly very nearly lived up to its title." According to William H. Miller, American maritime
historian
, The French Line
thereafter forbade any use of the ships they sold for scrap to be used for anything other than scrapping.
The film marked the third and final pairing of Stack and Dorothy Malone
. They previously had co-starred in the Douglas Sirk
films Written on the Wind
(1956) and The Tarnished Angels
(1958).
of The New York Times
called the film "exciting" and noted "the tension is held unrelentingly until the very end." He added, "Well, almost the end. Let's be honest. Things do finally come to a point where a reasonably realistic viewer is likely to mutter, 'Oh, no!' That's the point where the water in the stateroom is rising above Miss Malone's chin and Mr. Stack, Edmond O'Brien and Woody Strode are still working frantically with an acetylene torch to cut her free. Then the obvious desperation of the problem and the questionable buoyancy of the ship lead one to have misgivings about the reasonableness of Mr. Stone. But up to this point of departure, we have to hand it to him; he has put together a picture that has drama, conviction and suspense. Using as his setting the old condemned liner Ile de France . . . he has got an extraordinary feeling of the actuality of being aboard a ship, the creeping terror of a disaster, the agony of a great vessel's death. And in all of his performers, especially Miss Malone, he has got a moving reflection of frenzy, futility and fear."
The critic for Time
called the film "the most violently overstimulating experience of the new year in cinema: an attempt by two shrewd shock merchants, Andrew and Virginia Stone . . . to give the mass audience a continuous, 91-minute injection of adrenaline . . . As a piece of professional entertainment, The Last Voyage is plainly superior to the picture it was patterned after, the British version of the loss of the Titanic. The script takes advantage of its fictional freedom, as the script of A Night to Remember
could not, to focus its interest and excite its pace. The scenes of destruction are particularly explicit and dramatic . . . And yet, in its total effect, The Last Voyage lacks an element essential in all great disasters: dignity. Indeed, the idle depredation of a noble old ship, for the mere sake of salable sensation, may seem to some moviegoers an absolute indignity."
and Tim Baar for The Time Machine.
1960 in film
The year 1960 in film involved some significant events, with Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho the top-grossing release in the U.S.-Events:* April 20 - for the first time since coming home from military service in Germany, Elvis Presley returns to Hollywood, California to film G.I...
American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
disaster film
Disaster film
A disaster film is a film genre that has an impending or ongoing disaster as its subject...
written and directed by Andrew L. Stone
Andrew L. Stone
Andrew L. Stone was an American screenwriter, director, and producer. Best known for his hard hitting, realistic films, Stone frequently collaborated with his wife, editor and producer Virginia Lively Stone Andrew L. Stone (July 16, 1902, Oakland, California – June 9, 1999, Los Angeles,...
. It stars Robert Stack
Robert Stack
Robert Stack was an American actor. In addition to acting in more than 40 films, he was the star of the 1959-1963 ABC television series The Untouchables and later served as the host of Unsolved Mysteries.-Early life:...
and Dorothy Malone
Dorothy Malone
Dorothy Malone is an American actress. Her film career began in 1943, and in her early years she played small roles, mainly in B-movies. After a decade in films, she began to acquire a more glamorous image, particularly after her performance in Written on the Wind , for which she won the Academy...
.
The screenplay centers on the sinking of an aged ocean liner
Ocean liner
An ocean liner is a ship designed to transport people from one seaport to another along regular long-distance maritime routes according to a schedule. Liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes .Cargo vessels running to a schedule are sometimes referred to as...
in the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
following an explosion in the boiler room. There are some plot similarities to the disaster involving the Italian liner SS Andrea Doria
SS Andrea Doria
SS Andrea Doria[p] was an ocean liner for the Italian Line home ported in Genoa, Italy, most famous for its sinking in 1956, when 46 people died. Named after the 16th-century Genoese admiral Andrea Doria, the ship had a gross register tonnage of 29,100 and a capacity of about 1,200 passengers and...
, which sank after a collision four years earlier.
Plot
The film begins with a view of the SS Claridon, as a narrator states "The SS Claridon, a proud ship, a venerable ship, but as ships go, an old ship. A very old ship. For thirty-eight years, she's weathered everything the elements could throw at her. Typhoons, zero-zero fogs, the scorching heat of the tropics. Now she is scheduled for only five more crossings. Then a new ship, a plush, streamlined beauty will take her place. It is then that the Claridon will pass into oblivion. She has an appointment with the scrapyard. But, it's an appointment she'll never keep. For this is the last voyage."Laurie and Cliff Henderson and their daughter Jill are relocating to Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
and decide to sail to Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
on board the ship. A fire in the boiler room is extinguished quickly, but not before several safety valves have been fused shut. When Chief Engineer Pringle attempts to open one of them, a huge explosion rips through the boiler room and the many decks situated above it, killing him and some of the passengers and trapping Laurie under a steel beam in her stateroom, in addition to causing widespread panic, and opening a huge hole in the side of the ship.
Cliff runs back to Laurie's stateroom and finds that he can't get her out alone, he then finds Jill trapped on the other side of the room. He tries to use a shattered piece of the bed to get to the other side, but it falls through the huge hole caused by the explosion. Third Officer Osborne believes that the crew should start unloading passengers into the lifeboats, but Captain Robert Adams is reluctant, as he's never lost a ship. He tries to reassure passengers that they are in no immediate danger but this doesn't help calm them. Cliff finally manages to rescue Jill by using a board to have her crawl across the hole.
Down in the boiler room, Second Engineer Walsh reports to the captain that a seam to the bulkhead has broken away. Cliff tries to get the help of a steward, but to no avail. A passenger states that he overheard his conversation, and wants to help.
Osborne reports that the boiler room is now half-full. The Claridon then begins to transmit an SOS, on orders of Captain Adams. Cliff and a few other men return to the stateroom to try and help Laurie, but find they need a torch.
The carpenter reports to the crew that the boiler room is now two-thirds full. To make matters worse, Walsh doesn't know how long the bulkhead will last. The captain makes an announcement to the passengers to put on their lifejackets. This is more reason to panic. The lifeboats then begin launching.
Cliff finds a torch, and tries to rush back to Laurie with the help of crewman Hank Lawson. Walsh reports that if one more strut breaks, the ship will sink.
The boiler room then floods, causing the ship to sink lower. Also, a second explosion happens on the boatdeck. When Cliff and Lawson are down in the dining room, it too, floods, causing water to burst through the large windows.
The captain is looking at his promotion letter to commodore
Commodore (rank)
Commodore is a military rank used in many navies that is superior to a navy captain, but below a rear admiral. Non-English-speaking nations often use the rank of flotilla admiral or counter admiral as an equivalent .It is often regarded as a one-star rank with a NATO code of OF-6, but is not always...
of the line when he is killed after a smokestack falls upon him. Meanwhile, Cliff finally helps to get Laurie out from under the steel beam with the help of crewmen Lawson and Walsh. They get up to the boatdeck along with Second Engineer Walsh. Cliff, Laurie, Jill and Hank jump into the water and find a lifeboat just as the ship sinks. Second Engineer Walsh is shown swimming away, and the narrator concludes with "This was the death of the steamship Claridon, this was her last voyage."
Production
The film originally was scheduled to be shot in CinemaScopeCinemaScope
CinemaScope was an anamorphic lens series used for shooting wide screen movies from 1953 to 1967. Its creation in 1953, by the president of 20th Century-Fox, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection.The anamorphic lenses theoretically...
off the coast of England, but instead it was filmed almost entirely in the Sea of Japan
Sea of Japan
The Sea of Japan is a marginal sea of the western Pacific Ocean, between the Asian mainland, the Japanese archipelago and Sakhalin. It is bordered by Japan, North Korea, Russia and South Korea. Like the Mediterranean Sea, it has almost no tides due to its nearly complete enclosure from the Pacific...
off the coast of Osaka
Osaka
is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...
. The ship used in the film was the legendary French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
luxury liner SS Ile de France
SS Ile de France
The SS Ile de France was a French ocean liner built in Saint-Nazaire, France for the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique. The ship was the first major ocean liner built after the conclusion of World War I and was the first liner ever to be decorated entirely with designs associated with the Art Deco...
, which had been in service from 1927 until 1959, when it was sold to a Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese scrapyard. Her former owners initially attempted to block Stone's rental of the ship (for $1.5 million), but withdrew their opposition when MGM agreed not to identify the vessel by its original name when publicizing the film.
The ship was towed to shallow waters, where jets of water shot onto the ship from fireboats flooded forward compartments and made it appear she was sinking by the bow. Her forward funnel was sent crashing into the deckhouse and her Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
interiors were destroyed by explosives and/or flooded. Because there were too many poisonous jellyfish in the Sea of Japan, the final lifeboat scene was filmed in Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and...
. In his autobiography Straight Shooting, Robert Stack
Robert Stack
Robert Stack was an American actor. In addition to acting in more than 40 films, he was the star of the 1959-1963 ABC television series The Untouchables and later served as the host of Unsolved Mysteries.-Early life:...
recalled, "No special effects for Andy [Stone]; he actually planned to destroy a liner and photograph the process. Thus began a film called The Last Voyage, which . . . for yours truly very nearly lived up to its title." According to William H. Miller, American maritime
Maritime history
Maritime history is the study of human activity at sea. It covers a broad thematic element of history that often uses a global approach, although national and regional histories remain predominant...
historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
, The French Line
Compagnie Générale Transatlantique
The Compagnie Générale Transatlantique , typically known overseas as the French Line, was a shipping company established during 1861 as an attempt to revive the French merchant marine, the poor state of which was indicated during the Crimean War of 1856...
thereafter forbade any use of the ships they sold for scrap to be used for anything other than scrapping.
The film marked the third and final pairing of Stack and Dorothy Malone
Dorothy Malone
Dorothy Malone is an American actress. Her film career began in 1943, and in her early years she played small roles, mainly in B-movies. After a decade in films, she began to acquire a more glamorous image, particularly after her performance in Written on the Wind , for which she won the Academy...
. They previously had co-starred in the Douglas Sirk
Douglas Sirk
Douglas Sirk was a Danish-German film director best known for his work in Hollywood melodramas in the 1950s.-Life and work:...
films Written on the Wind
Written on the Wind
Written on the Wind is a 1956 American drama film directed by Douglas Sirk. It stars Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone....
(1956) and The Tarnished Angels
The Tarnished Angels
The Tarnished Angels is a 1958 American drama film directed by Douglas Sirk. The screenplay by George Zuckerman is based on the 1935 novel Pylon by William Faulkner.-Plot:...
(1958).
Cast
- Robert StackRobert StackRobert Stack was an American actor. In addition to acting in more than 40 films, he was the star of the 1959-1963 ABC television series The Untouchables and later served as the host of Unsolved Mysteries.-Early life:...
..... Cliff Henderson - Dorothy MaloneDorothy MaloneDorothy Malone is an American actress. Her film career began in 1943, and in her early years she played small roles, mainly in B-movies. After a decade in films, she began to acquire a more glamorous image, particularly after her performance in Written on the Wind , for which she won the Academy...
..... Laurie Henderson - George SandersGeorge SandersGeorge Sanders was a British actor.George Sanders may also refer to:*George Sanders , Victoria Cross recipient in World War I...
..... Captain Robert Adams - Edmond O'BrienEdmond O'BrienEdmond O'Brien was an American actor who is perhaps best remembered for his role in D.O.A. and his Oscar winning role in The Barefoot Contessa...
..... Second Engineer Walsh - Woody StrodeWoody StrodeWoodrow Wilson Woolwine "Woody" Strode was a decathlete and football star who went on to become a pioneering black American film actor. He was nominated for a Golden Globe award for best supporting actor for his role in Spartacus in 1960...
..... Hank Lawson - George Furness ..... Third Officer Osborne
- Jack KruschenJack KruschenJack Kruschen was a Canadian-born character actor who worked primarily in American film, television and radio.-Radio:...
..... Chief Engineer Pringle - Tammy Marihugh ..... Jill Henderson
Critical reception
Bosley CrowtherBosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
called the film "exciting" and noted "the tension is held unrelentingly until the very end." He added, "Well, almost the end. Let's be honest. Things do finally come to a point where a reasonably realistic viewer is likely to mutter, 'Oh, no!' That's the point where the water in the stateroom is rising above Miss Malone's chin and Mr. Stack, Edmond O'Brien and Woody Strode are still working frantically with an acetylene torch to cut her free. Then the obvious desperation of the problem and the questionable buoyancy of the ship lead one to have misgivings about the reasonableness of Mr. Stone. But up to this point of departure, we have to hand it to him; he has put together a picture that has drama, conviction and suspense. Using as his setting the old condemned liner Ile de France . . . he has got an extraordinary feeling of the actuality of being aboard a ship, the creeping terror of a disaster, the agony of a great vessel's death. And in all of his performers, especially Miss Malone, he has got a moving reflection of frenzy, futility and fear."
The critic for Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
called the film "the most violently overstimulating experience of the new year in cinema: an attempt by two shrewd shock merchants, Andrew and Virginia Stone . . . to give the mass audience a continuous, 91-minute injection of adrenaline . . . As a piece of professional entertainment, The Last Voyage is plainly superior to the picture it was patterned after, the British version of the loss of the Titanic. The script takes advantage of its fictional freedom, as the script of A Night to Remember
A Night to Remember
A Night to Remember is a 1955 non-fiction book by Walter Lord about the sinking of the ocean liner R.M.S. Titanic in 1912. The book was very successful, and is still considered a definitive resource about the R.M.S. Titanic. Lord authored a follow-up book, The Night Lives On, in 1986.A film...
could not, to focus its interest and excite its pace. The scenes of destruction are particularly explicit and dramatic . . . And yet, in its total effect, The Last Voyage lacks an element essential in all great disasters: dignity. Indeed, the idle depredation of a noble old ship, for the mere sake of salable sensation, may seem to some moviegoers an absolute indignity."
Awards and nominations
A. J. Lohman was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects but lost to Gene WarrenGene Warren
Gene Warren, Sr. won an Academy Award for the special effects on George Pal's The Time Machine in 1960. He also contributed to such projects as Land of the Lost, Man from Atlantis, and The Crow: City of Angels...
and Tim Baar for The Time Machine.