Reading some of the positive posts on this film leads me to wonder whether I watched the same movie. There's probably only one reason to catch this picture, that being the presence of Bela Lugosi. However with the bad editing of what survives in the American release of "Phantom Ship", even Lugosi's performance raises eye brows at times.
The story attempts to portray what might have happened on board the 'Mary Celeste', a ship out of New York harbor in 1872 bound for Italy, and found adrift and derelict in the mid Atlantic on December 5th of the same year. The speculation left this viewer disinterested as soon as the body count started to mount, especially when the ship's Captain Briggs (Arthur Margetson) attempted to pin down the whereabouts of his crew and who 'might' have possessed a gun when a bullet was fired into his stateroom. There's no time to build empathy with any of the crew members, primarily because no one's around long enough. Ultimately, Lugosi's character confesses to murdering the crew over having been shanghaied aboard the same ship six years earlier. Then, in a moment of crazed paranoia, he jumps overboard to seal the deal.
Besides Lugosi, the only other character bringing any gusto to the proceedings is first mate Bilson (Edmund Willard), and he does so by flogging his own men. A side story involves Captain Briggs as a newlywed with his wife Sarah aboard, but his leadership turns out highly ineffective. Apparently, the couple were allowed to escape the ship in the scenario presented, so Lugosi could complete his mission.
Devotees of films of the 1930's through the '50's will recognize Ben Welden as one of the men on board ship. He usually played cheap hoods in gangster films and early TV shows. The best though had to be the tattooed fat guy who almost made it to the end; watching him prompts one to get up and take a shower as soon as the film is over.
The story attempts to portray what might have happened on board the 'Mary Celeste', a ship out of New York harbor in 1872 bound for Italy, and found adrift and derelict in the mid Atlantic on December 5th of the same year. The speculation left this viewer disinterested as soon as the body count started to mount, especially when the ship's Captain Briggs (Arthur Margetson) attempted to pin down the whereabouts of his crew and who 'might' have possessed a gun when a bullet was fired into his stateroom. There's no time to build empathy with any of the crew members, primarily because no one's around long enough. Ultimately, Lugosi's character confesses to murdering the crew over having been shanghaied aboard the same ship six years earlier. Then, in a moment of crazed paranoia, he jumps overboard to seal the deal.
Besides Lugosi, the only other character bringing any gusto to the proceedings is first mate Bilson (Edmund Willard), and he does so by flogging his own men. A side story involves Captain Briggs as a newlywed with his wife Sarah aboard, but his leadership turns out highly ineffective. Apparently, the couple were allowed to escape the ship in the scenario presented, so Lugosi could complete his mission.
Devotees of films of the 1930's through the '50's will recognize Ben Welden as one of the men on board ship. He usually played cheap hoods in gangster films and early TV shows. The best though had to be the tattooed fat guy who almost made it to the end; watching him prompts one to get up and take a shower as soon as the film is over.