The Ghost Ship (1943) on Netflix
Passed19431h 9mDramaMysteryThriller
Tom Merriam joins the Altair as third officer under Captain Will Stone, who treats him as a friend. After a crewman dies in the chain locker, Merriam questions the captain's authority.
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- Netflix2.6/5
- IMDb6.6/104,201 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes82%
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Plot summary
Tom Merriam comes aboard the Altair as third officer, and Captain Will Stone treats him as a younger version of himself. The ship is short-handed, and when a sailor develops appendicitis Stone cannot bring himself to make the incision; Merriam performs the operation and asks the radioman to keep it quiet. Seaman Louie Parker tells Stone the ship should put into port to take on new crew, and is crushed by the anchor chain in the chain locker. Merriam believes that Stone, who is obsessed with authority, meant it to happen, and the crew blames a curse on the vessel. Finn, the mute hand aboard, says the ship is a ghost ship and that the deaths will continue.
Cast
- Tom Burtonas William Benson
- Harry Clayas Tom McCall
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Ghost Ship (1943)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Playwrights Samuel R. Golding and Norbert Faulkner sued producer Val Lewton for plagiarism in February 1944, claiming the script was based on a play submitted to him for a possible film. The court ruled against Lewton, and RKO paid the authors $25,000 in damages and $5,000 in attorney fees.
- RKO production chief Charles Koerner suggested Val Lewton make a horror film set at sea, using the studio's existing ship set built for Pacific Liner (1939). According to Lewton's longtime collaborator Robert Wise, that set gave Lewton the idea for the film.
- Lawrence Tierney, later a film noir star, made his motion picture debut in The Ghost Ship after producer Val Lewton spotted him modeling clothing in a Sears, Roebuck catalog.
- The final fight between Finn and the mad captain was shot on a dimly lit set so audiences could not guess who would win, much as Jacques Tourneur and Lewton had shot a similar scene in Cat People. Robson and Lewton repeated the technique in The Body Snatcher.
- Mark Robson and Val Lewton chose single-source lighting throughout The Ghost Ship to make the sets and performances more interesting, and the sets were designed to use that lighting.
- Richard Dix was cast because he was already under contract at RKO to do several "quickie" pictures at a set fee per film, and doing The Ghost Ship would help fulfill his contract without much effort.
