Rent Ship of Fools (1965)

Tied up in Knots - Ship of Fools review by CH

An epic film made soon after publication of the novel on which Katherine Anne Porter spent two decades, Ship of Fools has gone the way of many of its international cast. Unfairly so. True, many of them depict a type and the plot is more worthy than subtle (often the case with Kramer) but it is so well done that the time passes without any cinematic inertia. Set in 1933 with news of the Nazis coming to power as the ship makes its way from Mexico via Cuba and Spain to Germany, much turns around the Captain's table - and those excluded from finding a place at it. Shot in effective black and white, albeit with some hairstyles and even clothes better suited to the Sixties King's Road, this moves at a pace which scarcely gives one pause to wonder why people do not keep their cabin doors locked and how one of the best brawls this side of Destry Rides Again does not have them coming through those very doors to witness that fracas in the corridor.