Morituri (1965 film)

Morituri (The Saboteur)
original movie poster
Directed by	Bernhard Wicki
Screenplay by	Daniel Taradash
Based on	Morituri 1958 novel by Werner Jörg Lüddecke (in German)
Produced by	Aaron Rosenberg
Starring	Marlon Brando Yul Brynner Janet Margolin Trevor Howard Wally Cox
Cinematography	Conrad L. Hall
Edited by	Joseph Silver
Music by	Jerry Goldsmith
Distributed by	Twentieth Century-Fox
Release date	August 25, 1965 (1965-08-25)
Running time	123 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$6,290,000[1]
Box office	$3,000,000[2]

Morituri (also known as The Saboteur: Code Name Morituri) is a 1965 war film about the Allied sabotage during World War II of a German merchant ship carrying rubber, a critical product during the war. The film stars Marlon Brando, Yul Brynner, Martin Benrath, Janet Margolin, Trevor Howard and Wally Cox. It was directed by Bernhard Wicki. The filming occurred almost exclusively on an old German freighter.

Plot[]

Robert Crain (Marlon Brando) is a German pacifist during World War II, living in India as a Swiss national. He is blackmailed by English Colonel Statter (Trevor Howard) and the Allies into going along with a plan to use his engineering knowledge to disable the scuttling charges on a German merchant ship carrying rubber from Japan. The Allies hope to bomb the ship and recover its cargo, as rubber is in short supply and essential for both sides' war effort. They provide Crain with fake documentation and a cover story that he is a high-ranking SS officer needing to sail to Germany.

On board the ship, Crain finds the captain, Mueller (Yul Brynner) to be a patriotic German whose humanistic inclinations are hostile to Nazi principles. The first officer, Kruse (Martin Benrath), is a fanatical Party member who keeps a close eye on the captain. Crain convinces Kruse that he too is suspicious of the captain's loyalties. Several of the crew pressed into service because of labour shortages are in effect prisoners because of their political views. In time, after one of them tries to kill him, Crain enlists them in a plan to have the Allies take the ship, whilst also winning Mueller's grudging trust by persuading him not to fire the scuttling charges when the ship is almost torpedoed by a Japanese submarine due to its disguise as a British merchantman.

That submarine has two German Naval officers aboard, along with a number of American prisoners and Esther (Janet Margolin), a young German-Jewish woman who has been raped and tortured by her Nazi captors. Complications arise when the submarine meets with the ship to transfer Esther and the prisoners. Despite the horrors Esther was subjected to, she is still openly defiant of every German she encounters on board the ship, including Mueller and Crain. When Mueller is alone with her, he is able to overcome her expectation that he too is a brutaliser, adding that he will assist her to escape once the ship gets to Europe, a hope that is soon dashed when Kruse also learns that she is Jewish. Later Crain persuades her to join in his plot, but she is disgusted by his lack of commitment to the anti-Nazi cause.

The two German Naval officers, who are familiar with military personnel and operations in the Far East, become suspicious of Crain's SS identity and return to the submarine to check on his credentials by radioing to Berlin, giving Crain less than 24 hours to complete his mission. While awaiting the Naval officers' report Captain Mueller hears that his son, a German Navy officer, has been decorated for sinking an Allied hospital ship. Disgusted by this, Mueller becomes drunk and reveals in a rage the full extent of his anti-Nazi beliefs, which gives Kruse a reason to declare the captain unfit and take command of the ship. Meanwhile, about to be exposed, Crain organises a mutiny. For it to have any chance of success the American prisoners would need to participate, but when Esther appeals to them for help some only agree on condition that she is sexually compliant with them.

Just before the mutiny occurs, Crain receives the submarine radio message that Crain's SS identity is false, and arms the loyal part of the crew. The mutiny is then easily defeated and Kruse kills Esther for her part in it, but - though Mueller maintains he is "no traitor" and refuses to aid him - Crain is able to elude his pursuers long enough to detonate the scuttling charges he had not yet disabled. The surviving crew abandon ship, during which the anti-Nazi German sailors make sure the wounded Kruse drowns. Crain and Mueller are then the only persons left on board. Barrels of lard in the ship's hold spill open, expand and act as a stopper, temporarily keeping the ship afloat. Crain asks the captain to radio the Allies for rescue, and is surprised when he does so.

Cast[]

• Marlon Brando as Robert Crain
• Yul Brynner as Captain Mueller
• Janet Margolin as Esther
• Trevor Howard as Colonel Statter
• Martin Benrath as Kruse
• Hans Christian Blech as "Donkeyman"
• Wally Cox as Dr. Ambach
• Max Haufler as Branner
• Rainer Penkert as Milkereit
• William Redfield as Baldwin
• Oscar Beregi Jr. as Admiral Wendel (credited as Oscar Beregi)
• Martin Brandt as Nissen
• Charles De Vries as Kurz
• Carl Esmond as Busch
• Martin Kosleck as Wilke
• Norbert Schiller as Steward
• Robert Sorrells as Koeniger, German Crew Member
• Rick Traeger as Crew Member
• Ivan Triesault as Lieutenant Brandt

Reception[]

The film did not do well on its original release and was a financial disaster. In an attempt to increase its commercial appeal, the film was reissued in 1965 under a new title as Saboteur: Code Name Morituri. Critic Bosley Crowther of the New York Times criticized it for being "turgid." He praised Brando's performance, however, saying:

It is a role that calls for Mr. Brando to play a slyly deceptive game, conning the suspicious ship's officers into trusting him while he sneaks around defusing the explosive charges, and then to risk his neck in several ways while he secretly musters a gang of prisoners and dissatisfied crewmen to take control of the ship.

And he plays it with evident enjoyment, milking the moments of suspense with all his beautiful skill at holding pauses and letting tense thought churn behind his bland eyes. Again he speaks with a juicy German accent, as he did in "The Young Lions," and affects the elegant air of a fellow who packs an iron first in a silken glove.

But, alas, the melodrama is as turgid as that title they have given the film, and anxiety over the fate of Mr. Brando is dissipated in a vastly cluttered plot.^[3]

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Morituri holds a score of 75% based on 8 reviews, with an average rating of 7.3/10.^[4] The title "Morituri", the plural of a Latin word meaning "about to die," is a reference to a phrase used by Suetonius, Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant. (Hail Emperor, they who are about to die salute you.)^{[citation needed]}

Box office[]

According to Fox records, the film needed to earn $10,500,000 in rentals to break even and made $4,045,000.^[5]

Awards[]

The film was nominated for two Oscars in the 38th Academy Awards (1966) for best black-and-white cinematography (Conrad L. Hall) and best black-and-white costume design (Moss Mabry).

Meet Marlon Brando[]

After having appeared in a series of box office disappointments, Brando agreed to promote Morituri for the studio by participating in a day-long press junket at the Hampshire Hotel in New York City.^[6] This event was the subject of Meet Marlon Brando (1966), a 29-minute black-and-white documentary film directed by Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin.^[7] Brando was praised for his performance in the documentary by critic Howard Thompson who wrote, "The actor was never more appealing than in this candid-camera cameo, his best performance."^[6]

The documentary premiered at the New York Film Festival in 1966. Since then, it has aired on French television but was not shown in its entirety in the United States until specialised streaming service Fandor made it available on November 15, 2013.^[8]

References[]

External links[]

• Morituri (The Saboteur) at IMDb
• Morituri at AllMovie
• Morituri at Rotten Tomatoes
• Morituri at the TCM Movie Database
• Morituri at the American Film Institute Catalog