Last night, I watched Caine Mutiny on TCM. Watching the introduction by Robert Osborne, he called Humphrey Bogart's role as Captain Queeg "A departure from the more recent roles he had been playing to play the villianous Captain Queeg". HUH? Captain Queeg was not villianous! He was a tragic character, someone who wanted the new Navy to be more shipshape. Villianous would be Colonel Nathan Jessup, not Captain Queeg.
shareNope. Keefer was the villain. Queeg was a guy who'd been in combat too long and gotten promoted beyond his ability, but he loved the United States and the Navy. He cared about being a good captain. Keefer mocked the Navy from the beginning, and he manipulated everybody into going after Queeg while he was completely insulated from any fallout. Fred MacMurray was such a good actor-he could play a chump in Double Indemnity, a hero in The Forest Rangers, and a loveable patriarch in My Three Sons, and he was totally believeable in every role. I marvel at his range-to go from something like The Egg and I to something like The Caine Mutiny, and be totally convincing, is something you don't see every day.
http://thinkingoutloud-descartes.blogspot.com/
But even Keefer isn't a complete villain - he acknowledges his faults (especially in the book) and may well be acting on good intentions - he probably does believe that Queeg needs to be relieved of his command, for the good of the ship, but doesn't have the guts to do it himself - I think he genuinely does want to support Maryk when they go to see Halsey, but then chickens out once they're aboard the flagship, realising that Halsey won't listen to them (again, in the book, he puts together a lot more arguments than we see in the film to persuade Maryk to back off). From then on, he's very aware of the threat to his own career and becomes more concerned with covering his own back, eventually pretty much lying in his testimony at the court martial. However, even in the film, where he says 'I knew what I was doing', he is showing remorse for what he did, while, in the book, he comes to feel sympathy for Queeg over the strain of command. He's not a likeable character, and, in terms of manipulating others to achieve his own ends, yes, he is the villain, but, as is the case with other characters in the film and book, it isn't a case of black and white judgments.
Linked to this, somebody earlier on in this thread posted a question about who was the hero of the book? Is there one? Maryk was too easily led, Keith was merely an observer, while Greenwald only appears for a short while to get Maryk off the hook. Maybe it was Queeg, in the tradition of the tragic hero who brings about his own destruction. Just a thought.
Keith was pretty much the hero of the book. While he's more of a passive observer in the Queeg situation, he does progress from a pampered mama's boy to being a competent officer. He saves the Caine when it's hit by a kamikaze at Okinawa and helms it through a typhoon.
shareIn the novel Keith is the lead . . . in the stage play Greenwald becomes the lead player (a courtroom drama) . . . in the film Maryk now has become the lead--he must make the critical decision . . . each medium has its own rules . . .
shareQueeg was a guy who'd been in combat too long and gotten promoted beyond his ability, but he loved the United States and the Navy. He cared about being a good captain.what you say is true, but queeg was a villain in my opinion. he was willing to lie under oath and let others hang for his own incompetence. he also threatened ensign harding, who came forward with the truth about the strawberries, by holding up his transfer - even knowing that harding's wife was sick. it can be argued that queeg did the things he did because he was sick, but his just saying "i don't recall" while on the witness stand showed he knew what he was doing.
they should have stuck to the book. Queeg was a petty-minded obsessive who couldn't see the wood for the trees, making a fuss about trivia like shirts hanging out.
shareA little late to the party but just found this film. I wouldn't say he's villainous, a damn poor officer and even worse skipper definitely, but not a villain. I served in the navy for 8 years, served under a lot of skipper's, even served under one that was eerily similar to queeg in retrospect. I found I operated at my worst under queeg types and at my best under other CO's. Command is tough but that's the job and an officer, especially the CO, must be rank and file above the rest in judgement, ethics, and bearing. As, outside of the chiefs, they're the ones the enlisted men look to for their orders when the *beep* hits the fan. so to summarize, villain, no, but who the hell gave him the command of a ship. then again this was the same era that a man who ran one of his last ships aground became admiral of the pacific fleet (Chester Nimitz) so not surprising.
shareQueeg was given command of a ship because he'd had a spotless record in his previous seven years of duty in subordinate positions. Queeg was perfectly suited to subordinate duties but wholly unsuited to command.
sorry that was a bad joke. I was trying to tie off my comment with a bit of humor. I know how bad CO's (and queeg) get their commands.
shareThe U.S. Navy considered him competent enough to command the Caine . . . if there had been any questions I'm sure they were properly addressed . . . if there were problems aboard the vessel, well, they should've been properly investigated . . .
shareyeeeeah, remember when I said that this was the same era that promoted a man who had ran his last ship aground to the rank of admiral. that wasn't a joke. I did some watches in the Nimitz museum and that's actually a bullet point in his career with photos and everything. sooooo yeah, never really considered the 50's navy to be that competent with promoting officers and today's navy is only slightly better.
shareHowever . . . the Navy couldn't have counted on Keefer . . .
shareI remember a story about Admiral Rickover getting a submarine (running surfaced) stuck on a sandbar. I'm not sure if my memory is correct, but I do have the memory.
In a good system it is not about never making a mistake. It is about limiting the damage of the mistake and how well you recover from it. Of course, the system assumes that every officer in the chain of command is of good character. Unfortunately, most are only human beings after all.
The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank.
Wasn't it also because the Navy was short of as much great officer material as they needed at the time of a major world war? They had to settle for some less-than-great material. When manpower is tight, the standards go down.
shareQueeg is not a villain. He is psychologically exhausted and temporarily rendered incompetent to command by the years of wartime active duty he has been through.
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