Claude Akins

The Caine Mutiny (1954) starring Humphrey Bogart, Jose Ferrer, Van Johnson, Fred MacMurray

The Caine Mutiny is one of those movies where several elements work together to make an incredible film.   The acting is top-notch, with all of the actors at their peak.   Humphrey Bogart is believable, despicable, and, in the end, pitiable as the obsessive, controlling, paranoid Captain Queeq.   Van Johnson is utterly believable as the loyal, upright, by-the-book officer.   Fred MacMurray is absolutely unrecognizable, and I mean that in the best way possible.   He is not the loving, gentle patriarch of My Three Sons. Neither the likable father figure of various Walt Disney movies.  He is Iago, a little man who manipulates others into doing what he himself is unable and unwilling to do.   Jose Ferrer shines as the defense attorney in the court-martial.