Cebalord Very best movie i ever watch

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

mark.waltz The Panama canal is the target for communist spies in this Z grade thriller that is basically a 1950's version of the type of B movies coming out of Warner Brothers in the early 1940's, exchanging the flag with the spider on it for reds. With Germany no threat, the movies concentrated on the Russians, making them all stereotypical villains as they recycled old plots. Starring as the lead villain is veteran Warner Brothers supporting player, Barton MacLane, and boy, is he a baddie: smooth, but evil. Virginia Grey, a second string lead at MGM, is one of the passengers on this ship, unaware that her and everybody else are in danger of being blown up as this tug turns into tooth picks. There are a few tense moments, but mostly, this just drags.At just over an hour, this slows down at times as the commies try to show human values even though they aren't afraid of dying violently with everybody else. As MacLane puts it, Americans thrive too much on the value of human life. At times, he seems to be emulating Bela Lugosi. Its just too bad that thus doesn't have the camp value of Lugosi's Z grade thrillers. That might have raised this past being a rather dull thriller.

MartinHafer It's pretty obvious as you watch CAPTAIN SCARFACE that the film was made for a relatively small budget and starred lesser actors. It's also obvious that the "big name talent" for the film (Barton MacLane) was given a very weird and unconvincing role in the film. He plays Captain Scarface--a Russian maniac who sounded most of the time like he was doing a Bela Lugosi impersonation. While MacLane is a fine villain in films, he never really had a lot of range--this assignment was clearly outside his abilities. However, despite this as well as a rather abrupt ending to the movie, the film does work reasonably well--thanks to good writing.The plot involves a duplicated merchant ship that replaced the real one once it was torpedoed. The plan is to sail this fake cargo ship into the Panama Canal and explode an atomic bomb on board. The baddies are all Russian Communists bent on harming America. However, what the Ruskies don't know is that an American (Leif Erickson) has replaced a Russian collaborator, as he is sure something is amiss with this strange boat. With Erickson's help, the few passengers aboard the ship learn that death awaits them and so they work together (mostly) to stop the attack.This film is an interesting curio from the Red Scare and came out the same year Stalin died. Today, many might see the film and laugh at its seemingly paranoid and silly plot, but at the time this sort of film appealed to fears that Communism would engulf the globe. It gives us some insight into the people and the times. And, unlike some propaganda films of the era, this one is reasonably well done and quite interesting. Well written, aside from a very abrupt ending, it's worth a look.By the way, you gotta love the way they chose names for this film. One of the guy's names is Perro ("dog") and the boat is called the El Baño (though it's missing proper accent mark) which means bathtub or bath. Pretty goofy.

henri sauvage You know you're in trouble from the moment you spot Barton MacLane in the title role, sporting a dueling scar and a Dollar Store Prussian accent. The arrival on the scene of John Mylong (Kroll) -- fresh from his major role in the same year's epically awful Phil Tucker extravaganza, "Robot Monster" -- hardly bodes well for the viewer, either.On the other hand, Leif Erickson is serviceable enough as a wise-cracking adventurer who needs to get out of the country fast, no questions asked, and assumes Kroll's identity. (Strangely, the country they're in is never identified, not even with a fictional appellation; the locals seem to have some sort of taboo against naming their own country, always referring instead to "South America". As in, "Goodbye! We hope you enjoyed your stay in South America." Now who the heck says that?) Virginia Grey is undeniably winsome and appealing as the romantic interest. Erickson and Grey aren't exactly Bogie and Bacall, but their presence helps elevate this cheapie at least one point above merely awful.I also give the film another point for an interesting premise: Fanatical Soviets (were there any other kind, in the 1950s?) plan to destroy the Panama Canal, by using a kamikaze freighter with a nuclear weapon hidden on board. (Although they must have known this would kick off WWIII, because after all, this is 1953, and only the U.S., Britain, and the Soviets have the bomb, so it's not as if there would be a bewildering array of suspects.) Regardless, the Poverty Row production values, constricted running time, pedestrian script, and uninspired direction make this movie much less interesting than it could have been. Plus, there are plot holes you could ... well, steer a freighter through.Like when Clegg -- the radio operator on the original Banos, who betrayed every one of his shipmates to a certain death -- kills Kroll in a dispute over his payoff, but then neglects to murder the hotel manager who witnesses the shooting. You'd think such a cold-blooded character would have plugged the manager, too, since he was unarmed and standing close by. (Judging from the obvious budget constraints, my theory is they couldn't afford the extra blanks.) Also, you'd think that fully four years after the Russkis detonated their first nuke, the bad guys could have come up with a simpler and more reliable way to set the thing off than some hare-brained rigmarole involving springing a scientist from the gulag, and threatening his daughter.And I did mention Barton MacLane's game-but-lame attempt at a menacing accent, right? He should have stuck with the "tough guy with a major character flaw" roles he did so well, epitomized by his corrupt ex-cop in "High Sierra".This one might hold some academic interest for you, if you're a student of early Cold War Era propaganda. But the slightly similar Sam Fuller film "Hell and High Water" -- which debuted a year later -- is in every way more watchable.

Tom Willett (yonhope) Hi, Everyone, Barton MacLane is always a good bad guy. He has adopted an interesting accent for this ocean journey black and white adventure. All the cast does well even though the fight scenes are somewhat slow.The plot is probably more believable today than it was 50 years ago. Some of the stock footage of the ships is very nice.If this were remade today with Steven Segal this would be a great action flick. I don't think it would be any better as far as the storytelling, but the special effects would be majestic. I like this version enough to watch it once a year without getting tired of it.Tom Willett