By the wonderful powers of On Demand, last weekend Zanne, Bev, and I watched a movie that Zanne had been recommending for some time, alternately known as
Abandon Ship! or, more poetically, as
Seven Waves Away. The movie stars
Tyrone Power, a man in the same classic movie firmament as Flynn and with piratical cred to boot. He crossed swords with
Basil Rathbone in
The Mark of Zorro; Rathbone claimed Power "could have fenced
Errol Flynn into a cocked hat." He crossed wits with my favorite swashbuckling Hollywood redhead,
Maureen O'Hara, in the essential
The Black Swan.
Abandon Ship!, however, is a nautical movie but not an action movie. This is a play on the water, a drama that takes place entirely in a lifeboat. After their ship, the ocean liner
Crescent Star, hits a rogue mine and sinks in seven minutes, the twenty seven survivors crowd onto a boat designed for nine. Power's character, Executive Officer Alec Holmes, is given command of the boat when the Captain passes away. As the weather worsens, Holmes has to make a terrible choice: If all stay on the boat, perhaps no one will survive, but in order for
some to survive, passengers have to be sacrificed to the sea. He opts to keep those both useful and more likely to survive; the wounded and the cowardly are, essentially, discarded. Holmes also keeps his girlfriend, the ship's nurse, and a sassy, sexy socialite portrayed by the elegant
Moira Lister. The movie is an exploration of moral dilemma. It is also based on a real historical event, a key case in the annals of United States law, and a fascinating instance of ethics being tested by the harshest reality.
