Wonderfully offbeat film!

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

An exciting spy thriller, produced on a remarkably lavish budget. Filming aboard a real freighter adds tremendously to the film's sense of authenticity and realism. The spectator really feels caught up in the events on the screen. Skillful performances help a lot here. Although Marlon Brando is still inclined to mumble — with a German accent yet — one soon forgets about his mannerisms and concentrates on the double role he is playing. Other performers also register strongly, particularly Yul Brynner as the principled captain, Martin Benrath as his unprincipled first officer, Hans Christian Blech as a mutinous donkeyman, Oscar Beregi as the suspicious Admiral and Janet Margolin whose portrayal of a girl with a death wish is one of the film's most memorable. Actually it is wrong to describe the performances with a single adjective, as each contributes a rounded, realistic portrait. One of the signs that the film is adapted from a novel is this development of characters who are realistically sketched with more than one side to their nature. This characterization is preserved in Daniel Taradash's concentrated screenplay. Most of the action takes place on the freighter. In fact, the introductory scenes are a trifle slow and one was evidently designed to build up a role for Trevor Howard whose part is confined to the introduction. But once on board the freighter with the camera prowling down cramped companionways and infiltrating the greasy, grime-laden passages of the engine room, excitement mounts both from the interplay of character and external action.Bernhard Wicki's direction is extremely capable and uses his real locations most effectively. The action scenes are thrillingly handled with some spectacular explosions and extras milling about realistically, topped by some breathtakingly effective tracking and crane shots obviously filmed from a helicopter. Conrad Hall's atmospheric black-and-white photography, is, despite the hazardous conditions of filming in confined quarters, technically flawless. Composer Jerry Goldsmith has contributed a haunting leitmotif, the sets are enormous and realistic, the film editing is as smooth as silk. Production values, as said, are exceptionally lavish. It's rather odd that a movie featuring two super-stars like Brynner and Brando seems to have disappeared. Even more odd, when that movie offers such terrific entertainment. Perhaps the title is no help. And of course it's in black-and-white!

Dumb espionage flick with Marlon Brando running around cutting ship wires and lying through his dippy German accent on the way to the close-up showing his pained reaction to a Jewish woman explaining how terribly her people were persecuted.I don't know if the film was trying to be 'complicated', but if it was, than director Bernie Wicki failed miserably, because this tripe is rather easy to follow. Of course, any character here who's supposed to be 'good' is sympathetic to the Jews. God forbid Hollywood (which is Jewish-owned and operated) look at history from a Nazi's viewpoint.Mostly boring film bloated with the presence of 'big' names like Brando, Trevor Howard, and Yul Brynner. Boo-hoo.

I saw this for the first time in 48 years on Netflix last night. The only visuals I remembered were 1-Janet Margolin with a bullet hole in her forehead 2-the Nazi assistant captain with a bloody forehead from banging on the ships side 3-the innovative(for 1965) helicopter wide shots.I had totally forgotten about the plot and any character development. Brando was coming off of some scathing reviews in "Mutiny on the Bounty" and "Ugly American" and was about to go southern in "The Chase" so definitely a low time for him. Yul was Yul and Wally "Mr. Peepers" Cox was playing lost again like he did in "The Bedford Incident". If this were made 5 years later Janet Margolin would probably have shown more skin and fared better than a few Woody Allen movies. Oh yes, Trevor Howard makes a cameo appearance as Trevor Howard. The Netflix print looked like it had been stored in the trunk of a 1963 Volkswagen at the neighborhood junk yard. Too bad because th B+W kind of gave it a Noirish tone. I don't know if it was B+W to save money or to create a mood or just to say it was Brando and Brynners last B+W movie.

I'll quickly cover this film and then go on to talk about IMDb and its rankings scheme in general.Morituri was for me a big surprise as I wasn't expecting much. Frankly Im not very used to watching black and white films and most films from that era do seem rather dated to me. This movie rocked my socks. It was tight, gripping, and moving. Like a well written thriller played out on screen by arguably the greatest leading men of all time - Marlon Brando and Yul Brynner. If you haven't already seen this, watch it right now. Its worth your time and $.Now lets have a look at IMDb rankings. The Dark Knight was released in 2008 and has about 637,794 votes. Casablanca released in 1942 has about 207,358.There's no logical or artistic reason why The Dark Knight is rated higher than Casablanca on IMDb's ranking. Therefore if you're reading this, do your best to promote the films that you really like because there are millions of fools doing the same for substandard, trashy ones. Now I'm not saying the Dark Knight is trashy but just used that title as an example.