Seven Waves Away (1957)

Director:

Richard Sale

Writer:

Richard Sale (writer)

Release Date:

17 April 1957 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama

Plot:

Ship's officer finds himself in command of a lifeboat full of survivors of a sunken luxury liner.

Plot Keywords:

Disaster | Captain | Mistress | Gambler | Nurse

Cast

Tyrone Power	...	Alec Holmes (Crescent Star Executive Officer)
Mai Zetterling	...	Nurse Julie White
Lloyd Nolan	...	Frank Kelly
Stephen Boyd	...	Will McKinley (officer on Crescent Star)
Moira Lister	...	Edith Middleton
James Hayter	...	'Cookie' Morrow
Marie Lohr	...	Dorothy Knudson
Finlay Currie	...	Mr. Wheaton
John Stratton	...	Jimmy 'Sparks' Clary
Victor Maddern	...	Willy Hawkins
Eddie Byrne	...	Michael Faroni
Noel Willman	...	Aubrey Clark
Moultrie Kelsall	...	Daniel Cane
Robert Harris	...	Arthur J. Middleton
Gordon Jackson	...	John Merritt

Also Known As:

Abandon Ship! (USA)
Seven Days from Now (USA)

Runtime:

USA:100 min | 97 min (Encore-Action Library Print)

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Company:

Copa Productions

Goofs:

Continuity: The boat used in long shots and the one in close-ups are obviously different.

Quotes:

Alec: We can't take any weather, she'll sink right under us.
Kelly: Well, that leaves just one thing... You've gotta evict some of the tenants.

Movie Connections:

Remade as The Last Survivors (1975) (TV)

Under-appreciated Classic

Once seen, never forgotten. Very few films have ever moved into Hitchcock's territory and beaten him, but Seven Waves Away / Abandon Ship is one: ultimately it's a much superior film to Hitchcock's similar Lifeboat. Seven Waves Away was made with impressive conviction and passion by writer-director Richard Sale, who was very active in the 1950s but didn't get another opportunity to direct a feature after this one, despite living 36 more years (what's up with that?). Working with production designer Wilfred Shingleton and art director Raymond Simm and filming almost entirely in a large tank (except perhaps for a few long shots), Sale created an unforgettably immediate atmosphere for a completely harrowing and uncompromising tale of survival at sea under the worst imaginable physical and ethical circumstances.

The cast performed admirably under very trying circumstances (imagine being wet all day, every day); in fact, the miseries of the filming process influenced the acting in a quasi-documentary manner that benefits the picture enormously. Even seen on television, Seven Waves Away is an intensely experiential movie; I can only imagine what it felt like on the large screen.

This was practically Tyrone Power's last hurrah; in his early forties when the movie was filmed, he died of a heart attack on a project shortly thereafter (as his actor-father Tyrone Power Sr. had before him). Power acts with tremendous force and tension as the "captain" here; the dramatic arc of the story is contained entirely within his decision-making process, and for a first-time viewer his key decision (which I will not reveal) will always register as startling because it runs so counter-intuitively to our received sense of ethics. But that is part of what gives Seven Waves Away its wallop.