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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 29, No. 7. 1966.

New Kramer film outstanding

New Kramer film outstanding

Stanley Kramer, as a producer, has the ability to hire and coordinate the activities of first-rate directors, writers, actors and expert technicians.

His finished products are usually films of interest and merit. Champion, The Men, High Noon, Death Of A Salesman, The Wild One, Member Of The Wedding, A Child Is Waiting and Invitation To A Gunfighter all come from the Kramer stable—a fine lot of films in anyone's book.

As a director, however, he is a suspect proposition since his own work has ranged from the absurdities of Not As A Stranger to the excellent The, Defiant Ones. He has demon-strated an outstanding ability in at least one respect and that lies in his handling of actors. Witness the performances of Poitier and Curtis in The Defiant Ones, Tracy and March (if they need directing) in Inherit The Wind, and Tracy. Schell and Clift in Judgement At Nuremburg.

This facility is notably demonstrated in his Ship Of Fools, which was screened in Wellington recently. Adapted from Katherine Anne Porter's novel by Abby Mann (a Kramer regular), the film deals with the happenings on board a German passenger ship in 1933. There are travellers of many nationalities and many types, including both Jewish and pro-Nazi Germans.

As many have observed, the situation is a familiar one: put a number of people in a confined environment and observe their behaviour as they react on one another. Personal consequences are on this occasion supplemented, as might be expected, by political ones. The novel (and the script) rather smartly puts knowing words in the mouths of the characters, and allusions to the German situation, the rise of Nazism and the predicament of the Jews, are numerous. One Jew questions. "There are millions of Jews in Germany. What are they going to do, kill us all?" The audience sniggers.

It is. however, the develop-ing personal relationships, especially the affair between the doctor and the Contessa. which give substance to the film and provide its main interest. Kramer's direction is straightforward, which is. perhaps, a good thing, since he has demonstrated in the past that having hit upon an initially interesting technique he proceeds to flog it to death (e.g. the boring, omnipresent elliptical panning shots in Judgement at Nuremburg).

Kramer's straightforward approach, combined with fine Oscar-winning photography competent editing, and appropriate music, works well. He eschews cinematic bril-liancles, being content to milk the dramatic potential for all it is worth. He has succeeded admirably.

The script often sounds like a tract, but this has always been a characteristic of Abby Mann, with his penchant for social significance. The trouble with this emphasis is that it reduces the characters; to mere ciphers—mouthpieces in succeeding rounds of intellectual ping-pong. Despite this drawback. Vivien Leigh, Lee Marvin, Jose Ferrer and Michael Dunn for the most part come across as flesh-and-blood people, and they are ably supported in the minor roles.

Simone Signoret is fine as the contessa bound for exile and there is a quite stunning performance from a teutonic, ravaged Oskar Werner as the ship's doctor. Their love affair emerges as the core of the film and. despite any good intentions Kramer may have had otherwise, they conjure up a magic which is worth all the moralising and socio-political clap-trap put together. It is to Kramer's credit, however, that he has captured on film a relationship of such genuinely moving dimensions.