Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

GazerRise Fantastic!

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

edalweber As a lurid melodrama I suppose that this is OK,provided that you do not take it seriously.It may seem'realistic" because it is so grim and gritty, but it will not stand up to close examination.The producers were shamelessly trading on the reputation of one of the greatest books about the sea for a contrived soap opera. It would have been far more honest to make up their own title.Virtually nothing about the movie bears the slightest resemblance to the book. I saw the movie,and have read the book several times. It is a great account full of details, very well written which deserves repeated readings, to get the most out of it.Seeing the movie once was quite enough.The only real characters were Captain Thompson, and Dana himself, who is of course the narrator of the book which is the true account of his own experiences.The real Dana actually was more like the fictitious Stewart than the ordinary seaman he is in the movie. He was from an upper class family, and a student at Harvard who was making this trip to "toughen up" and repair his health.The part about his brother dying from abuse as a seaman was total fiction.The real Captain Thompson was a hard and sometimes brutal man, who abused his authority by flogging two seamen without just cause,although apparently it was a case of loosing his temper. Apparently he secretly regretted it, because later he controlled his temper under much more trying circumstances,and even refrained from flogging the carpenter after he had urged the mate to seize command from the captain.Flogging was apparently much rarer than legend has it;when the ship arrived in California, and word of the flogging spread among the other ships in the hider trade,the seamen on the other ships at first thought it was a joke, and then were very shocked and surprised when they found out that it actually happened, indicating that it was far from normal.Thompson and the "Pilgrim" rapidly got a very bad reputation.The scurvy incident, intended to show the callousness of the captain, actually, if it had happened, would indicate that he was insane.No captain would have done that.Regardless of his lack of humanity, he needed the crew to work the ship,and scurvy would render them helpless.In fact, scurvy did strike during the trip home, and the captain desperately sought out any ship that had fresh provisions, which he found.Actually, Dana was not trying to lessen the authority of the captain in law.He didn't even want to remove his right to flog disobedient seamen;he said that if he ever went to see as a captain, he would want to have the authority to flog,though he would hope that he would never have to use it, because of the unruly elements represented among common seamen.He felt that it was essential as a constant threat to maintain discipline He did say that captains should be held accountable for abuse of their authority,and that courts were far too lenient on ones convicted of abuse.In the book he said that at the time of the floggings he swore to bring Thompson to justice;whether he actually did or not is unclear.His family was friendly with the senior partner of the firm that operated the ships he sailed on in the California hide trade.

Alex da Silva The press gang of the "Pilgrim" recruits a crew and the ship sets sail. Captain Thompson (Howard Da Silva) is only concerned with breaking speed records and has First Mate Amazeen (William Bendix) and Second Mate Foster (Luis Van Rooten) as his side-kicks to run discipline with a rod of iron. There are floggings, rations, neglect and heartless sea burials on his journey. The crew who suffer include Charles Stewart (Alan Ladd), Henry Dana (Brian Donlevy) and Brown (Albert Dekker). Dana keeps an incident log which will change merchant sea law forever. It becomes published and is called "Two Years Before The Mast" This is a true-life account of conditions at the time and is based upon a book that introduced maritime law. The cast are all good - Howard Da Silva makes an excellent bad guy. I don't usually like children in films but the stowaway Sam Hooper (Daryl Hickman) isn't as annoying as I feared he might be, and his inclusion in the story has relevance in how the crew relate to Charles. Indeed, he also brings out a human side to Mr Amazeen. However, I am not sure what the point of having the 2 passengers was - the film dragged whenever Maria (Esther Fernandez) was on screen. It was good to watch Charles's transformation from a dislikeable oik to a man with a conscience. There were also some humorous moments thrown in, eg, when Charles goes back to eat the chicken he has stolen in front of the crew that hate him. It's a good film but I never understand the point in scrubbing the decks. What's that about?

dbdumonteil By several respects ,some kind of updated "Captain courageous" (Victor Fleming ,1937).The rich kid (Alan Ladd) has grown up and he is still frivolous ,part of the young jet set ,drinking and picking up girls in the low dives of the harbor.When dad learns that his boy is on his own ship,in the clutch of a -rather sadistic- captain ,he does not panic and wisely mumbles something like " it 'll make a man of him" ;which is not entirely false.Not only ,the boy born silver spoon in hand will learn the harsh realities of life ,but he'll also feel for his unfortunate shipmates (many of them poor press-ganged aboard victims like himself ).Although the movie is centered on Ladd's misadventures ,it actually depicts "Henry Dana's crusade to expose mistreatment of men at sea" (Maltin).But the reviewer is wrong when he writes that it is a "badly scripted story":in fact only the female character gets in the way and the ending is botched.All that remains is absorbing ,the standout being for me the ship's boy.Farrow was better at film noir ,but his attempt at an adventures movies is recommendable.Like this ? try these ...."Mutiny on the Bounty" (Frank Lloyd's 1935 version is still the best) "Captain Courageous" (Fleming,1937) "Down to the sea in ships" (Henry Hathaway,1949) "Ghost Ship" (Mark Robson/Val Lewton,1943) "White squall" (Ridley Scott,1996)

mgm-4 This is a movie to see to get a feel for what it must have been like back in the "good old days" of tall ships and iron men. Lemme tell ya, the cruise ships of today are as far from "sailing" as a toy poodle is from a wolf.This is one of my favorite movies, Alan Ladd is wonderful as the spoiled rich boy, while Howard Da Silva as the ruthless captain only interested in setting a new record around Cape Horn creates a new high-water mark for callousness. (What's with sea captains in Hollywood movies, anyway? If it's not the bumbling incompetence of Bogart's Queeg it's the cold heartlessness of Trevor Howard and Charles Laughton's Captain Bligh.) The stowaway kid (Darryl Hickman) is a bit over-the-top I admit, but it seems they all were in movies made back then. Speaking of back then, this baby is in black-and-white, and although some of the scenes in the various waterfront bars and in the hold of the ship benefit thereby, the outdoor scenes suffer a bit because of it. And speaking of outdoor scenes, they really didn't put much of the budget into special effects, as the boat looks exactly like what it is, a toy bobbing around in someone's bathtub.Still, that's not why people love this movie. It's the fascination of watching Alan Ladd's Charles Stewart transformed from rich, obnoxious playboy into deeply affected human being as he watches the massive cruelty and abuse around him. The cruelty and virtual slavery of these sailors is portrayed with an unflinching eye, and you're cheering along with them when the final confrontation unfolds. As someone wiser than me observed, "Going to sea is going to jail, with a chance at drowning besides."