THE LAST VOYAGE

US, 1960, 91 minutes, Colour.
Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, Edmond O’ Brien, George Sanders, Jack Kruschen, Woody Strode.
Directed by Andrew L. Stone.

The Last Voyage in its day could have been called old-fashioned melodrama. In the light of the disaster trend of the seventies, the film fits very well into that group of films. There is an explosion on a ship and the liner begins to sink. Needless to say, there are decisions to be made, suspense and fights for survival. Advertising notes that a genuine liner which was awaiting scrapping was sunk for the special effects of the film.

The film was written and directed by Andrew L. Stone who made many thrillers in the forties and fifties. In the seventies he ventured into the spectacular field of the musical with Song Of Norway and The Great Waltz. They looked beautiful but the screen plays were very limited and even made the composers, Grieg and Strauss, look somewhat silly. Stone was at his best in films like The Last Voyage which compare favourably to the disaster films of the seventies and eighties.

1. Was this an enjoyable adventure film? How strongly did it involve its audiences? What was the nature of its suspense? Successful suspense? Audience identification with characters and with the situation and danger?

2. How good was the quality of the reconstruction of the ship, the note, the disaster? The use of widescreen and colour? Did the disaster seem real or contrived by Hollywood?

3. How did this film compare with the seventies disaster films and their spectacle? It was smaller scale, but was it less successful? What were the major features of its impact? How do these compare and contrast with recent films? How successful was the voiceover commentary on the incidents? Did this add to audience involvement or take away from it?

4. Was the film successful in its main emphasis on the voyage and the disaster compared with the amount of attention given to characters?

5. Was the focus on the Henderson family satisfactory? Did this serve to help audience imagination about the rest of the characters? Could audiences identity with the Henderson family? A nice American family? the relationships amongst themselves, the setting with the Captain and his remembering their identity? The impact of sudden and unexpected disaster and audience identification with this? The suspense and feeling for the little girl on the plank, the wife, crush, immobile, thoughts of death, the priorities about dying, others on the ship, the focus of decisions, the final relief at their being saved? Was this a good technique for this film?

6. How credible was Henderson's panic? Could audience understand this? His relationship with his daughter and saving her on the plank, his panic and all the efforts to save his wife, his understanding for her plight, the expression of their love? the dance and then the disaster? Whether he should have survived or died with her? Comparing him with his wife and the feelings in such a situation? Was he right to attack the Captain and the other men? Was he right to give his wife the priority?

7. Laurie Henderson and her plight? Wanting her daughter to be saved? The temptation to suicide and her inability to kill herself? Asking for herself to be shot? Could audiences understand this? The moral issues involved? The wasted life in view of her being saved?

8. How important was the new workman? His strength in helping the men in the boiler room? His compassion for the Hendersons and his helping them without thought of himself?

9. Walsh and his ordeal in the engine room, trying to save the ship? How interesting were these sequences? How convincing in the rush and order of the manual work? The priorities of who was to be saved? Walsh's clashes with the Captain? Was Walsh in the right? The impact of his men? His concern to help the Hendersons? His skill in saving them?

10. Was the portrayal of the Captain convincing? The background of his ambitions? Was he a weak man? Did he make the right decisions? Was he more interested in saving the ship and making a show? The clash with Walsh? His death?

11. How well portrayed were the other officers? The portrayal of them at work, in their functions? In contrast with the Captain? Their critique of him? Their role in saving the passengers?

12. How interesting were the minor details of the people on the ship, the panic and the control, the lifeboats, the atmosphere of fear, the possibilities of selfishness? How important was it that the disaster happened in daylight and in calm water?

13. How important in the struggle for survival? What did the film have to may about the desperate need to survive?

14. Why do audiences like disaster films? To experience vicariously the danger? To understand people in such situations and imagine themselves? In this an enjoyable thing? A valuable entertainment experience?