This is a wonderful little thriller with Bela in top form. We have a very strange tale here, set in late 1800's. If you don't wish to probe the darkness of humanity you may not find this tale interesting. A sea captain (Margetson) wants to marry and take his bride (Shirley Grey) on his next voyage. A strange wish to say the least. Another sailor, Anton Lorenzen (Lugosi) has just returned from sea a shattered man, a victim of being shanghaied.Lugosi learns the Mary Celeste is set to sail so he joins the crew, intent upon righting a wrong. Margetson is ruthless, but less so than many of the other men aboard the ship. There is a strange tension aboard the ship. Margetson stole Grey from an old friend, so even the romance seems doomed. First mate Bilson (Edmund Willard) is a ferocious thug and he is responsible for much of the dread and mayhem aboard the Celeste. The ship is portrayed as a hell hole. The men who sail her are soulless monsters capable of any crime. Grey witnesses many of the cruelties and she (and the viewer) wonders why he asked her to sail with him.Lugosi is a quiet and gentle man as shown by his kindness to the cat. Willard sees the cat on the ship and tries to throw it overboard, but with one arm, Lugosi thwarts Willard and saves the cats life. Yet Lugosi will show no kindness to the devils responsible for his current state. During a vicious storm, sailors begin to disappear one by one.Frankly I'm flabbergasted that the film is rated so lowly. It is unfortunate that the complete film is presumed lost. The missing 20 minutes would be very welcomed. But the guts of the tale remain and it's not a shining one for humanity. Dark, brooding and at the center, gentle Bela enacting revenge one murder after another. This film is close to a masterpiece.

Bela Lugosi was an actor of few dimensions. As much as he dominated the screen when he was on thanks to those searing eyes and those clenched hands reaching out for a victim, he could also make you roll your eyes with his hamminess and his slow reading of dialog. Coming off such Universal horror classics as "Dracula", "The Black Cat" and "The Raven", Lugosi was mixing in poverty row melodramas and mysteries, and with the British made "The Mystery of the Mary Celeste" (re-titled and greatly edited for American release), he was able to give one of his best performances. The compassion for his world-weary character, shanghaied years before and abused by the captain of the Mary Celeste, he has returned home, only to find that the ship is about to sail again. So with great subtlety, he signs on as a crew member, and one by one, the other crew members start disappearing. Lugosi seems the least likely suspect, but as bodies are dumped overboard and Lugosi and only a few others remain, the likelihood of his being the culprit increases. The reason is how and why, and for the people who discover the empty ship sailing past them, it truly is a mystery.Many poverty row films have not been saved by the ravages of time, but fortunately, the DVD print of this melodrama has been greatly restored with excellent picture quality and pretty good sound. It moves quickly too, even if the presence of Shirley Grey as the captain's new wife aboard isn't really at all believable. Her recurring singing also gets a little bit in the way, but that's a truly minor complaint. No Lugosi film would be complete without his mad scene, and he delivers it here with gusto, not a mustache twirling Tod Slaughter type, but one which shows that the mind can only take so much before snapping into madness from which there is no escape.

"The Mystery of the Mary Celeste" is a much cleaner-sounding and more suitable title for a dramatic story that is based on the true events of what is widely considered as the greatest maritime mystery of all times. The alternate title, "Phantom Ship" merely just cashes in on the successful horror movie reputation of its lead player Bela Lugosi and makes this film sound like a bona fide ghost story, which it definitely ain't. The journey of the Mary Celeste is pretty much doomed from the beginning, at least according to its superstitious crew members, because the newlywed captain brings his wife on board. The women aboard omen turns out to be true when the ship successively encounters devastating thunderstorms and inexplicably sinister accidents with deadly casualties among the crew members. Could the Mary Celeste really be cursed or is there simply a whole lot of foul play involved, like for example sabotage by the man whose marriage proposal was recently rejected by the captain's lovely wife? "The Mystery of the Mary Celeste" is a really ancient film – nearly 75 years old now – and that is noticeable in literally every tiniest detail. Probably this film already looked dated in the 40's already, what with its very rudimentary decors and hideously abrupt editing. For fans of that typically 30's style, the film is definitely worth checking out, as it bathes in ominous atmosphere and cheap awkwardness. The psychedelic ending is definitely far ahead of its time and I can image it must have upset a lot of tender souls back when the film played in theaters. Of course, the writers had to come up with some sort of sudden and abrupt twist in order to remain faithful to the Mary Celeste mystery and leave the several possible theories wide open. The immense ship was found floating around unmanned in the Atlantic Ocean in 1872. There wasn't any material damage or signs of struggle, but none of the crew members was ever seen or heard from ever again. The ideal scary cinema concept, in other words.

Denison Clift's "The Mystery Of The Mary Celeste" aka. "Phantom Ship" of 1935 is a great movie starring Bela Lugosi in a great though atypical role. Many people seem to dislike this movie and I don't really see why. Maybe some people have mixed feelings about "Phantom Ship" because Lugosi's character is not the ingenious super-villain he often played, but an unshaven and scruffy sailor. In my opinion, however, Lugosi's role not being typical doesn't downgrade his excellent performance, and "The Mystery Of The Mary Celeste" is a highly atmospheric Horror Mystery and, by the way, one of the first movies produced by the legendary Hammer Film Productions.The fictional story, which was inspired by the tragic case of the real-life ghost-ship 'Mary Celeste', is of course not historically accurate. Some characters have the names of real-life members of the "Mary Celeste" crew, but the rest of the story is pure fiction. I don't see this as negative either, however. First of all, movies don't always have to be historically accurate to be good. Second, this movie doesn't claim historical accuracy, the beginning clearly says that the story was only inspired by the tragedy of the Mary Celeste.The great Bela Lugosi is, once again, brilliant in his role, and some of the other cast members, such as Edmund Willard or the heavily tattooed Gunner Moir also deliver great performances."The Mystery Of The Mary Celeste" is impressively filmed, and the dark, sometimes haunting atmosphere and menacing character of the sea are excellently brought to screen. The film's musical score is also great, occasional songs sung by characters contribute to the movie's atmosphere, and the background score in some other scenes contributes to the suspense."The Mystery Of The Mary Celeste" is a highly atmospheric, excellently shot and vastly underrated movie. Lugosi fans can't afford to miss this. Highly Recommended! 8/10