It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Oil tanker captain Edward G. Robinson picks up shipwreck survivors during WW2. Among them is pretty Lynn Bari. The middle-aged captain falls for her and the two are married, despite the objections of his friend and first mate, Victor McLaglen. Later, after his ship is sunk by a torpedo, his new bride is suspected of being a German agent. Eddie sets out to uncover the truth and hopefully clear her name.Perhaps only in the fantasyland of movies can a woman as attractive as Lynn Bari be into a guy that looks like Edward G. Robinson (without him being rich, of course). I was able to keep my inner cynic in check on this part of the story. The rest of it is a little more far-fetched but I won't spoil all of it for you. Let's just say what Robinson does to investigate I've seen in older movies before and it always stretches credulity. Eddie's good and Lynn's not bad, either. Victor McLaglen is wasted in his blah part. It's a watchable WW2 flick. Robinson fans will like it more than most.

Here we see a much stronger Edward G. Robinson challenging Victor McLaglen who was never really in the contest anyway. The film itself is not that good, but it does explore how people you work with who may appear to be friends are actually spying on you for the opposition. McLaglen plays an unconvincing Nazi spy who betrays Robinson leading to the sinking of his ship.Robinson marries a woman who is rescued from a sinking ship and doesn't have the necessary documentation to get into Mexico. He takes her under his care which is quite touching and shows the sensitive side of his acting repertoire.

This is one of those little gems that makes discovering on a rainy Saturday afternoon a pleasant surprise. It is not a great movie in any sense of the word, but a very enjoyable one. Yeah, like some of the other reviewers, I wondered what in God's Green Earth it was that Kathy saw in Captain Manson (Edward G. Robinson), but short pudgy guys need love too and outside of Hollywood, romances like this very often happen. Also, Victor McLaglen played his role as the ship's First Mate so straight, not in his usual drunk loudmouth Irishman character, that I almost did not recognize him.The plot was interesting (more fun than riveting), as the story goes from a sea adventure to a spy tale, with a little bit of romance thrown in. The perceived mismatch between the young attractive Kathy and the older Capt Manson only add to the mystery regarding her real motives.Just a fun little movie to hunker down on the couch under a blanket, pass the time and eat some popcorn.

Robinson's career as a leading man was on the downslide at this point and he was jerkily moving into starring support roles like his turn in DOUBLE INDEMNITY when he made this one, a handsome Fox programmer with noir lighting in which his role is a bit of a retread, combining the lovesick dope of TIGER SHARK, the mature sea captain and some World War Two intrigue. He's got good players with him too, with Lynn Bari and Victor MacLaglen.... and when it came to playing a role cleanly and honestly in the movie theater, Robinson's only competition was Spencer Tracy. And if they have film footage of either of them reading the telephone book, it will be worth seeing. So this one is worth your time. Which you should have known when you saw his name on the cast list.