The Last Voyage (1960)

User Rating:

6.4/10   

Director:

Andrew L. Stone

Writer:

Andrew L. Stone (written by)

Release Date:

19 February 1960 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

AT 12:05...a woman trapped in her cabin! AT 12:22...the passengers on the decks begin to panic! AT 12:41...the desperate rescue attempt with the acetylene torch! AT 1:01...the dramatic life-and-death decision on the bridge!

Plot:

After a boiler explosion aboard an aging ocean liner, a man struggles to free his injured wife from the wreckage of their cabin and ensure the safety of their four-year-old daughter as the ship begins to sink.

Plot Keywords:

Boiler Room | Explosion | Trapped | Ship | Ocean Liner

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 1 win

Cast

Robert Stack	...	Cliff Henderson
Dorothy Malone	...	Laurie Henderson
George Sanders	...	Captain Robert Adams
Edmond O'Brien	...	Second Engineer Walsh
Woody Strode	...	Hank Lawson
Jack Kruschen	...	Chief Engineer Pringle
Joel Marston	...	Third Officer Ragland
George Furness	...	Third Officer Osborne
Richard Norris	...	3rd Engineer Cole
Marshall Kent	...	Quartermaster
Andrew Hughes	...	Radio Operator
Robert Martin	...	2nd Mate Mace
Bill Wilson	...	Youth
Tammy Marihugh	...	Jill Henderson

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Approved (certificate #19361) | Finland:K-16

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

According to maritime historian William J. Miller, the famed French Line was so horrified that their former flagship would be used in such a way that they demanded that the Ile de France's name be removed from the ship's bow and that in no way would any references be made to the French Line.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: In the final scenes of the ships sinking, as the characters jump into the water, there is an inrush of sea water onto the deck. The ships bulkhead clearly bends over with the weight of this water as this is obviously a wooden film set and not the real ship they jump from.

Quotes:

[Last line]
Cliff Henderson: This is one guy I'm gonna help aboard personally!

Movie Connections:

Edited into Goliath Awaits (1981) (TV)

Rich in Human Values & An Exciting Story

The other comments have restored my love for this film. Like another reviewer I saw it as a kid & never forgot. I saw a world, for the first time, where things could go terribly wrong; Disney never showed me stuff like that. And when things went wrong there were good men pulling together to make it right again. One of them was a black man. A little girl was scared but brave too. The mommy would do anything for her baby & husband to make it.

Twenty odd years later I bought it & took it to our little experimental film group at the county schools. I wanted everybody to see the realism of the approach & the human values. I also wanted them to see what you could accomplish if you took advantage of a unique setting or situation. The Ile De France was on it's way to be scrapped & this was the basis for the film. Nobody would even watch & that really bummed me out. Then I lent it to my good friend Conrad. He was a retired merchant marine officer (second). He said he laughed all the way thru because many things were not exactly realistic. One thing, the stateroom was down inside the ship not up in the superstructure where staterooms are supposed to be; and stuff like that.

Well you know they were WRONG. This is great film-making; a great story well told. Gripping from start to finish. I believe it was titled '90 Minutes to Disaster' when I saw it. I was right. So what if every little fact isn't exact. I will say that the narration is a bit annoying, that is true. When a film is a memorable event in a kid's life (more than one) it's a great film.

I have just finished reading a book called 'Collision Course' by Alvin Moscow about the Stockholm, Andrea Doria disaster in 1956. The script seems to me to contain some interesting echoes from this tragedy; the worst shipping disaster since the Titanic. Not coincidentally the Ile De France was one of the rescue ships on the scene & she was famous for rendering aid in several other shipping disasters.