Abandon Ship! (1957) (4K Ultra HD Review)
DIRECTED BY: Richard Sale
STARRING: Tyrone Power, Mai Zetterling, Lloyd Nolan
RATED: UR/Region: 0/1:66/2160P/NUMBER OF DISCS 1
AVAILABLE FROM Sony Pictures
There are plenty of survival movies where the biggest problem is finding food, water, or shelter.
Then there’s Abandon Ship!, which takes the slightly more pessimistic approach of asking, “Okay, but what happens when there are too many people in the lifeboat?”
Directed by Richard Sale in 1957, this is one seriously grim survival drama. After a luxury liner hits a derelict mine in the Atlantic, a ship’s officer finds himself in command of a lifeboat packed with survivors. Unfortunately, the ocean is enormous, the lifeboat is very much not, and there are only so many supplies to go around.
And suddenly that “women and children first” policy starts looking like it needs a very detailed terms-and-conditions section.
What makes Abandon Ship! so damn effective is that it isn’t really about the sinking. The ship goes down, everybody gets into the lifeboat, and then the movie essentially says, “Congratulations! The real nightmare starts now.”
The ocean is brutal, the weather is miserable, everyone is exhausted, and the supplies are disappearing faster than a free buffet at a convention. But the biggest threat isn’t even the sea.
It’s the other survivors.
That’s where this movie gets wonderfully uncomfortable.
The officer in charge has to make increasingly horrible decisions about who gets to live, who gets left behind, and how long the group can survive before everyone starts turning on each other. It’s the kind of moral dilemma where there really isn’t a correct answer—just different levels of “well, we’re all screwed.”
And Richard Sale doesn’t let the audience off the hook either.
You aren’t watching some heroic captain confidently bark orders while orchestral music tells you everything will be fine. You’re watching a man slowly realize that being in charge means having to make decisions that nobody should ever have to make.
It’s basically a management position from hell.
“Congratulations, you’re now the supervisor.”
“Great! What’s the salary?”
“Nothing.”
“What’s the benefits package?”
“You get to decide who dies.”
“…I’ll take the day off.”
Tyrone Power is excellent in the lead, and the movie gives him a genuinely difficult character to play. His officer isn’t simply a hero or a villain. He’s a man under impossible pressure who is desperately trying to keep some semblance of order while the situation becomes increasingly hopeless.
And that ambiguity is what makes the movie work.
You might disagree with his decisions. You might think he’s making the wrong choices. You might even find yourself screaming at the screen, “What the hell are you doing?!”
But you understand why he’s doing it.
That’s much harder to pull off.
The supporting cast is also terrific, and the crowded lifeboat creates an almost claustrophobic atmosphere despite the fact that they’re surrounded by miles and miles of ocean. Everyone is wet, tired, hungry, miserable, and increasingly desperate.
Basically, it’s the world’s worst group vacation.
No hotel.
No bathroom.
No Wi-Fi.
And somebody keeps dying.
The movie is also surprisingly brutal for 1957. It doesn’t need buckets of blood to make the situation horrifying. The psychological cruelty does most of the heavy lifting, and some of the decisions these characters have to face are genuinely bleak.
What really surprised me, though, is how well the movie holds up.
There are plenty of older survival films that feel quaint today, but Abandon Ship! still feels tense because the central problem is timeless. Put too many people in a situation with too few resources and eventually somebody is going to have to make a terrible decision.
It’s essentially Survivor, except there’s no million-dollar prize, nobody gets to vote people off the island, and Jeff Probst isn’t around to make everybody feel better.
It’s a fantastic little survival thriller that keeps getting darker the longer it goes. The premise is simple, but the moral questions it raises give the movie considerably more weight than you’d expect.
And honestly, I’d much rather watch a movie like this than another modern disaster film where some CGI wave destroys a city block while a family outruns it in a Prius.
Abandon Ship! understands that sometimes the most frightening thing isn’t the giant wave.
It’s having to decide who gets the last piece of bread.
This is a smart, tense, surprisingly nasty little survival movie that deserves more attention from anyone who enjoys old-school thrillers. It’s grim, compelling, and occasionally so uncomfortable that you’ll find yourself wishing somebody would just rescue these poor bastards already.
Of course, then you remember the title.
They aren’t going to.
And that’s what makes Abandon Ship! such a damn good movie.
Just remember: if you’re ever offered a position in charge of a lifeboat full of survivors after a maritime disaster…
Say no.
The pay sucks, the hours are terrible, and the employee-relations issues are absolutely brutal.
Extras
- Audio Commentary (Domestic Version only)
