I really love the "Secret History of Hollywood" Podcast, and a new spin off show "The House of Hammer" has recently been released, chronicling the history and output of the legendary British production company. They began with "The Mystery of the Mary Celeste", Hammer's second ever film - the first, "The Public Life of Henry the Ninth", is currently considered "lost media". For it's release in America, under the title "Phantom Ship" approximately 20 minutes of footage was cut and is also considered lost now. However, at just over an hour, that cut is available on Youtube and it was that, I watched.
Having recently married, Captain Benjamin Briggs (Arthur Margetson) and his wife Sarah (Shirley Grey) set sail on the Marie Celeste, transporting alcohol from America to Genoa, in Italy. His first mate is Bilson (Edmund Willard), a bruiser who keeps his men disciplined with violence and isn't above a 'shanghai' if the crew appears short. One volunteer though is Anton Gottleib (Bela Lugosi) a one-armed but experienced sailor, but whose trauma on a previous voyage has effected his confidence.
It is pretty tough to judge the film properly. It's around 86 years old at time of writing and was only the second film that the burgeoning company made. Much of the editing is brutal, though its' hard to say whether the blame for that should land with the original team, or with whomever made the cuts for the American release. Either way, scenes often end midsentence - especially notable with the very last scene, where a character is clearly still talking though the dialogue has been replaced by the swell of music, and the "The End" card. There are scenes missing that you think must have been shot as, whilst trying to keep my review spoiler, the fates of two key characters are told to us, rather than shown.
The story is reasonably solid though, settling into a "Ten Little Indians" style whodunnit, where characters keep disappearing and the suspicion grows on board that one of them must be responsible. Again, keeping this as spoiler free as I can, I did think that the film did as good as job as it could of attempting to misdirect us from the perpetrator. The performances are a bit of a mixed bag, with Lugosi standout, as you might imagine but some of the others blandly and emotionlessly repeating lines.
In fairness, despite the difficulties of watching and following what was happening, and the seemingly key scenes missing, I did somewhat enjoy "Phantom Ship", particularly for Lugosi's performance.
Having recently married, Captain Benjamin Briggs (Arthur Margetson) and his wife Sarah (Shirley Grey) set sail on the Marie Celeste, transporting alcohol from America to Genoa, in Italy. His first mate is Bilson (Edmund Willard), a bruiser who keeps his men disciplined with violence and isn't above a 'shanghai' if the crew appears short. One volunteer though is Anton Gottleib (Bela Lugosi) a one-armed but experienced sailor, but whose trauma on a previous voyage has effected his confidence.
It is pretty tough to judge the film properly. It's around 86 years old at time of writing and was only the second film that the burgeoning company made. Much of the editing is brutal, though its' hard to say whether the blame for that should land with the original team, or with whomever made the cuts for the American release. Either way, scenes often end midsentence - especially notable with the very last scene, where a character is clearly still talking though the dialogue has been replaced by the swell of music, and the "The End" card. There are scenes missing that you think must have been shot as, whilst trying to keep my review spoiler, the fates of two key characters are told to us, rather than shown.
The story is reasonably solid though, settling into a "Ten Little Indians" style whodunnit, where characters keep disappearing and the suspicion grows on board that one of them must be responsible. Again, keeping this as spoiler free as I can, I did think that the film did as good as job as it could of attempting to misdirect us from the perpetrator. The performances are a bit of a mixed bag, with Lugosi standout, as you might imagine but some of the others blandly and emotionlessly repeating lines.
In fairness, despite the difficulties of watching and following what was happening, and the seemingly key scenes missing, I did somewhat enjoy "Phantom Ship", particularly for Lugosi's performance.