DVD/150: SHIP OF FOOLS (Stanley Kramer, 1965)

Although Stanley Kramer's films were popular and 'liberal', they now feel heavy-handed and humourless, the attempts at profundity land with a thump.

SHIP OF FOOLS is GRAND HOTEL afloat: a cross-section of people reflecting their society and as we are on a boat from Mexico to Germany in 1933, the rise of Nazism permeates the air.

SHIP OF FOOLS is important as it was Vivien Leigh's last film as the lonely divorcée Mary Treadwell.

Apart from Vivien, the best performances are from Oskar Werner as the exhausted ship's doctor and Simone Signoret as La Contessa, a Cuban politician's former mistress en route to prison in Tenerife.  While curing her opium addiction, they fall in love for the brief time they have.

Nominated for eight Academy Awards, Europeans Werner and Signoret were recognised as was Michael Dunn as the film's dwarf 'narrator' - it won for Cinematography and Art Direction.

Shelf or charity shop?  For Vivien and Simone it's a keeper.  Kramer had known about Vivien Leigh's precarious mental health when he hired her but a recent downturn into manic paranoia caused problems with other cast members but despite flare-ups with Kramer, Signoret and Lee Marvin - who shared most of his scenes with her - they all sympathised and showed understanding. This febrile quality to Vivien's performance really stands out in the film - in particular her sudden frantic Charleston in an empty ship's corridor and the following scene where, staring in her mirror, she gives way to her fears of ageing alone, at one point, she brightens up and flashes a coquettish smile and the years fall away and you can see her as Scarlett O'Hara again, charming her suitors on the Tara veranda.  She died two years later of tuberculosis.