Marlon Brando was in the middle of his lean period when he made this World War Two thriller. "Morituri" did little to revive him as the film flopped when it came out in 1965. I am hardly surprised by this! The story on the written page looked quite interesting, no doubt. The final results are a right shambles. The main problem with this movie, is the lack of a coherent narrative. After about the opening 15 minutes, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep up with what is meant to be happening. Marlon Brando is cast as another German character who is ordered by British Intelligence to capture a particular vessel which is set to be dynamited. Brando needs to prevent this. Trevor Howard - in a couple of brief scenes - is the one who liasons with Brando at the beginning. The British actor should have been given more screen time. Yul Brynner is his usual robotic self as the ship's captain. I found myself having to guess what was occurring from one scene to the next and most of the film is restricted to being set and filmed on the ship. Long before the end (and it seemed interminable), I gave up on this rambling mess.

Unbelievably good direction of camera crew. Fantastic helicopter shots with NO CGI! Inside the ship, closeups turning into wide shots back to closeups of other people. Brando is very good but watch Brynner talking about his cigar - what a master. Wally Cox should have been nominated for an Oscar. especially if you have seen his later films and TV shows. But it is the direction (Bernard Wicki) of the camera work that is the reason all movie buffs should watch this twice. Amazing work.

As the reviewers who used to get paid for writing this stuff would have said: "The real star of this picture is the ship!" Truly. The freighter has a life and personality all its own and all its gritty secret parts and workings are breathtakingly rendered in Conrad Hall's (Outer Limits) moody black-and-white, fabulous sound, and an amazing Jerry Goldsmith score.The 2 human stars are spot on--and we even get a cameo by the great Martin Kosleck!Two beefs: 1) the shameful misogynist treatment of the luminous Janet Margolin. 2) What has been an absorbing thriller, 7/8 of the way through suddenly turns philosophical/moral/political as Yul the Good German gets it on with his Bad German first mate and meanwhile the American POWS are even more swinish than the Nazis.But the ending is cool.And Like I said, the ship rocks this house.

I re-watched this Brando-Yul Brynner film after almost a decade. I liked it a lot lesser this time. This is Brando's second film about intrigue and mutiny on a ship. He had acted in Mutiny on the Bounty three years earlier. It is also his second film as a German - he had acted as a sympathetic Nazi in The Young Lions. In Morituri, he plays a German engineer who is persuaded by the allied forces to impersonate a cruel SS officer while traveling on a German ship. His mission is to carry out sabotage so that the allied forces can steal the rubber which is the ship's cargo. Yul Brynner is the ship's Nazi hating captain.It really is a tepid anti-war film. There was not a single scene worth mentioning. There are a lot of wannabe clever, cynical and ironic dialogs. But nothing really works. The director fails to create any sort of tension. Brando's character easily fools everyone on the ship. Janet Margolin's Jewish character who is gang raped by prisoners on the ship (this happens towards the end of the film and by this time I was too bored to be shocked) is supposed to emphasize the film's anti-war message.There is a long tracking shot (almost certainly shot from a helicopter) where the camera pans the length of a ship while Yul Brynner passes orders down to the crew. But it adds nothing to the film.Brynner and Brando are introduced in two exotic locations - Tokyo and India respectively. Brando's performance deserves some praise. As usual, he is all body language. I love the way he carries himself. He did exude cruelty in many of the scenes. Brynner's role was too sentimental and over the top. His accent was quite painful to my ears. Jerry Goldsmith's laidback score reminded me of the one used in The Third Man.This must be one of the most uninspired war movies that I have ever watched.(5/10)