Abandon Ship

(UK Title: Seven Waves Away,
Alternate Title: Seven Days from Now)
(1957)
Written and Directed by Richard Sale
Starring Tyrone Power, Mai Zetterling, Lloyd Nolan, Stephen Boyd, John Stratton
IMDB Entry

I read a lot about movies, especially in my younger days. As a result, I’ve at least heard of the top films of the era. But when Adam-Troy Castro, a friend of mine who runs a movie blog on Patreon, mentioned Abandon Ship, I had never heard of it, and he spoke so well of it that I had to take a look. It is a true dramatic gem.

The movie starts out with the image of a mine floating free on the water as the credits roll. Then it explodes.

It destroys the ocean liner SS Crescent Star, which sinks in seven minutes, killing nearly all of the 1156 people on board. Executive Officer Alec Holmes (Tyrone Power) finds his girlfriend Julie White (Mai Zetterling) and joins the 25 other survivors rest on the only lifeboat.

The big problem is that the lifeboat is built for twelve. Not everyone can fit on the boat without swamping it, so some of the survivors have to remain in the water, holding on to the gunwales.

Holmes takes charge, given command by the dying captain. And their prospects are dire. They are 1500 miles from land, and the ship’s radio operator, Sparks (John Stratton), was unable to send an SOS. Holmes has to do the unthinkable and sacrifice some of the survivors in order that the rest of them can live.

The drama is as intense as I’ve ever seen. Everything is life and death, and, as conditions deteriorate, Holmes has to make life or death decisions.

Power is excellent. He has to condemn people to death because logically it is the only choice, but he still manages to project that he hates the course he has to follow, even as he follows it.

John Stratton is also memorable as the radio operator who is clearly suffering from PTSD and guilt over not being able to bring help soon.

One important point is that the film is based on a true story. And while nowadays, that’s usually trumpeted in all the promotional material, this isn’t mentioned until the very end of the file, where they tell the legal fate of Holmes.

Director Richard Sale came up as a screenwriter and switched to directing. Some of the films he wrote had vaguely memorable.* This was his final film.

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*Notably, Suddently, where Frank Sinatra played an assassin. The film was withdrawn from distribution by Sinatra because it was too close to the JFK assassination. But there was a colorized version that became the horrible example of colorization, mostly because “Old Blue Eyes” is shown with brown eyes.