It's 1939 Germany right before the war. The Nazis have sent the MS St. Louis off to carry 937 Jewish refugees to Cuba as propaganda. The passengers range from the rich, to the poor, and the fearful prosecuted. The ship itself and its services are luxurious. Captain Schroeder (Max von Sydow) is not a party member and works to help the passengers. Nazi operative Otto Schiendick is inserted into the crew and ferments dissent. Upon arrival in Cuba, only 28 are allowed to disembark while the others' visas are invalidated retroactively. Schroeder tries to find sanctuary in America and Canada to no avail, and is forced to return to Europe.The cast is stuffed and overloaded with class A actors. The movie is trying to follow too many people. It leaves the intensity low and the story scattered. It moves too slowly and is too long. It's a great historical epic of human failings. It's too bad that the movie isn't better. The subject matter deserves it.

Phenomenal and grossly under-rated film dealing with 937 Jewish people allowed to flee the terror of Nazi Germany in 1939 by going on the St. Louis which was bound for Havana.The truth be told, the Nazis had no intention of allowing the boat to land successfully. Rather they were going to use this trip to show that no one wanted the Jews and therefore when they would destroy them, no one would care or have the right to care.The picture has a terrific cast in this ill-fated adventure.For a second time, Oskar Werner, so memorable as the Dr. Willie in "Ship of Fools," plays another doctor, but this time a Jewish one. Along with his wife,Faye Dunaway, they are passengers. Of course, it's hard to fathom Miss Dunaway as Jewish.Sam Wanamaker and Lee Grant are a couple fleeing from persecution by the Gestapo. Grant's acting in a pivotal scene by cutting off her hair was Oscar made,and while she received the only acting nomination in the film, she lost to Beatrice Straight's "Network." It should also be noted that Straight's time on the screen was even more brief that Grant. Grant's brief performance was probably her best, even better than in "Shampoo," the film that gave her the supporting Oscar the year before.While the boat is drifting along, we see the players in Cuba either desperately trying to help the unfortunate Jews or corrupt officials in the Cuban government who played along with the Nazis for their own selfish economic interests.Wendy Hiller and Luther Adler have their moments as an elderly Jewish couple. It's also hard to conceive Hiller as Jewish until she rips her garment in the traditional way when a death occurs. Hard to envision a Jewish funeral at sea with the Nazi swastika swerving on the ship.Ben Gazzara is brilliant as a Jewish operative desperately trying to free the passengers. He goes all over the world and uncovers nothing more than frustration. Only a last minute reprieve saved the passengers from returning to Germany. Many of those however wound up perishing in countries invaded by Germany during the war.This brilliant film serves as a reminder to the moral decay of the 1930s and that nations did little to stop the Nazi menace from the killing of 6 million innocents.It is amazing that this film does not rank up there with "Ship of Fools," or even "Schindler's List."

Nazi atrocities hang over the heads of some 937 Jewish refugees who are allowed to board the S.S. St. Louis in Hamburg, Germany, bound for Havana in 1939, but corrupt Cuban dignitaries (and apathetic other countries) manage to find unjust legalities which prevent the ocean-liner from docking. Dramatized true account with a star-studded cast filling the roles of the passengers (professors, lawyers, teachers, one rabbi, a Nazi spy, at least two children, a Christian ship's captain, and Faye Dunaway, looking wonderfully turned-out as the wife of a frustrated doctor). With anti-Semitism making a wave through Havana, nobody there is anxious to take on the Jews (they are looked on as charity cases), but the personalities in these excursions are static at best, with Ben Gazzara playing a globe-trotting businessman attempting to bargain on behalf of the voyagers (he seems to come from a different film altogether). Produced (or, one may say, packaged) by '70s tycoon Sir Lew Grade, the proceedings verge on the edge of disaster-movie clichés (with the appearance and the pacing of a television mini-series). The material warrants attention, but the melodrama inherent in the situation continually falters--gummed up with ungainly issues, overdrawn hysteria (Sam Wanamaker's suicide attempt), flagrant sentiment (Katharine Ross' Havana prostitute), and thuggish violence (it's bad enough that the two male teachers--scrawny and with their heads shaved--have been through hell, this narrative gives them more of the same, which is about as entertaining as watching victims at a firing squad). Dunaway, coolly regal and ice-pack gorgeous, approaches her part like visiting royalty, and gives the film a little goose. **1/2 from ****

A true gem particularly when one considers the potentially campy casting of Faye Dunaway, Max Von Sydow, Malcolm McDowell, Jose Ferrer and the late model Orson Welles. Nevertheless, VOTD is surprisingly heartfelt as it tells the hopeless story of German Jews set a drift on a luxury liner during WWII. No country will have them although Cuba makes a half-hearted and ultimately politically corrupted attempt.Dunaway is terrific as the socialite wife of once distinguished doctor Oskar Werner. Von Sydow plays the ship's captain and he gives a strong performance. Jonathan Pryce, James Mason, Ben Gazzara, and Wendy Hiller are in it too. Sam Wanamaker is excellent as the ship's angriest passenger who gives his wife Lee Grant a real run for her money. Katherine Ross has a highly disposable cameo as a hooker. Directed, with surprising flair, by Stuart Rosenberg.