Excellent film involving espionage during World War 11. Marlon Brando plays a German citizen living in India who is blackmailed to go on a ship filled with rubber that is bound for Germany. His assignment is to dislodge charges on the boat so that the allies can get the rubber.

He doesn't immediately hit it off with the ship's captain-Yul Brynner.

Nevertheless, this becomes a great spy film where Brando and Brynner both reveal their anti-Nazi feelings.

In a supporting role, Janet Margolin plays a Jewess boarded on the boat along with American prisoners. Her description of what happened to her parents and brother are memorable. She is very effective in her role as the tragic young lady.

This film is exciting and very revealing. The end gets you to think, something which is rare in films today.

A WW2 drama/thriller that I'd never heard of before watching. I can see why it flopped as it's noticeably old fashioned for the mid 1960s; the plot and black and white cinematography place it firmly in the mid 1950s. Brando is a rather subdued choice for lead but Brynner is thoroughly entertaining as the decent captain. The film has some good suspense moments but is quite slow for a lot of the running time and it does go on a long time, so I can see why audiences weren't enamoured of it.

Having just sat through a terrible performance by Marlon Brando in "The Missouri Breaks", I probably was not terribly inclined to enjoy him in "Morituri". It's just that although I've seen and reviewed a ton of films, I really haven't seen too many of Brando's and thought I'd give a few a try.

Fortunately, Brando's performance was very muted--perhaps a little too muted at times. But, he was not a deficit in the film and his German accent sounded okay to me--though I'd love to hear what some Germans think of his efforts in this regard.

The film begins with a British officer (Trevor Howard) blackmailing Brando into helping the Allies capture a shipment of rubber. His job is to pretend to be an SS passenger and disarm the system for scuttling the vessel should there be an attempt to seize it. Naturally, this is NOT as easy as it sounds (and it doesn't sound easy) and there are lots of complications. In addition to Brando, Yul Brynner plays the captain and Janet Margolin as rather shrill lady prisoner. None of it is the least bit brilliant and the Captain seems a bit revisionist in style, but it's a pleasant little war film...plus it IS different. Worth seeing but certainly not a must-see.

By the way, towards the end is some music that sounds inspired by that in "Psycho". What do you think?