CAPTAIN SCARFACE

US, 1953, 72 minutes, Black-and-white.
Barton Mac Lane, Virginia Grey, Leif Erikson, Peter Coe, Rudolph Anders, Paul Brinegar.
Directed by Paul Guilfoyle.

A minor, B-budget supporting feature of the early 1950s. There is an atmosphere of the Cold War about the plot, an attempt to blow up the Panama Canal by Communist activists.

Barton Mac Lane is the captain of the ship, Communist sympathiser, dominating his crew, with a great deal of equipment for the detonation of the bomb (not really explained how it got onto the ship, especially as the captain’s original ship is shown initially as exploding and his new ship made to resemble the destroyed ship). He is not keen on passengers coming aboard. However, three American tourists are to return to the US, and a scientist and his daughter are also to be on board. A local American property supervisor is getting out of the country after tangling with the wife of his employer.

The early part of the film establishes the captain and his crew. It also introduces the passengers at a local hotel – but, a mysterious man accompanying a scientist and meeting up with his daughter tangles with one of the crew of the destroyed ship who demands his payment. They are all part of the plan to get the scientist on board so that he can destroy the canal, his daughter being held as a hostage.

However, the supervisor, Leif Erickson in an early role, turns out to be not only the hero but the romantic hero. A lot of double-dealings, threats to the scientist, threats to his daughter, the tourist wife dying and her grief-stricken husband throwing himself over board.

Not particularly plausible at all, but time-filler indicating Communist fears of the 1950s.