Fred MacMurray
His character, Keefer, is very much like the character Falstaff.
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You mean an instigator, a fair-weather friend, and a coward?
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MovieChat Forums > The Caine Mutiny (1954) Discussion > Fred MacMurray
His character didn't really make sense to me in the film. I initially thought his court testimony was done at the behest of Maryk's lawyer.
shareThere's nothing in the book, play, or film to indicate that Greenwald wanted Keefer to testify as he did. In fact, he showed his contempt for Keefer's conduct by throwing the wine in his face at the party following Maryk's acquital. However, in order to calm Maryk, who was shocked at Keefer's betrayal, Greenwald said it was better to have one hero than two disgruntled complainers. Whether Greenwald meant it is not clear.
Actually, Greenwald's act of throwing the Champaign in Keefer's face was a cowardly act since he knew Keefer could not strike back due to Greenwald's broken hand. Obviously, Keefer could have cleaned his/clock even without the bad hand. Greenwald's high and mighty behavior is really a sour note in the film. As Maryk said after Greenwald's diatribe against them: "You weren't on the bridge of the Caine".
BTW that Champaign is yellow was a symbolic way of designating Keefer as a coward much as the color of the yellow stain was symbolic of Queeg's cowardly behavior in the face of the enemy.
Two negatives (Keefer, Queeg) perhaps canceled each other out and resulted in a positive (at least for the Ensign)=the return of Devriess . . .
shareNo, it wasn't a cowardly act on Greenwald's part. He knew Keefer wouldn't do anything because he knew Keefer was a coward and an intellectual malcontent. Intellectual malcontents are natural cowards; they infest academia with their grasp of language and concepts, riling others to do what they haven't the guts to do themselves. In the novel, Keefer instantly reminds Greenwald of just such a person.
How different the story would've been sans Keefer . . . Maryk was too pliable . . .
shareProbably very different.
Without a Intellectual Malcontent like Keefer, more than likely the mutiny would never have happened at all. Maryk wouldn't have bothered keeping the journal documenting Queeg's odd behaviors. Perhaps, in place of Keefer, you have a different kind of person operating as Communications Officer, one who's not working on a novel and has no personal gripe with the Captain as he would in the novel. Would that mean that this officer would've done a better job? That's speculatory, but what isn't is that without the intellectual firepower waged against Queeg, much of which was right, Maryk wouldn't do a thing about it. As you say, he's pliable, and that pliability goes in different directions.
In all likelihood, the Caine might very well have sank in the typhoon.
Keefer was certainly responsible for the mutiny (as Greenwald points out in the wine-throwing incident - in the book, he says something like 'well, you got your mutiny' to Keefer, IIRC) but it was Willie Keith who was the fulcrum - if he (as OOD) had backed Queeg on the bridge instead of Maryk, that would have been it - the mutiny would have ended then and there. As in the film, the book questions whether Keith really knew enough about seamanship to make an informed decision at that point and that his backing Maryk was probably a combination of disliking Queeg and being swayed by Keefer's arguments rather than sound professional judgment. That's the beauty of the book - you can see why the characters behave the way they do, but their actions are always open to debate.
shareThe novel wasn't so much about the mutiny, but about Accountability. Whether Keith and Maryk were right or wrong about the whole thing, at the least they did what Keefer could not do, they stood accountable to their actions. They were willing to defend what they did before a court-martial and not duck out of the consequences because they did what they believed, through reason and instinct, was right. The whole novel has as its theme Accountability, and how everyone, including Keith, Maryk, Keefer, and Queeg himself, duck out of it. Keith grows as a man the more he faces the truth of who he is, what his situations are, and how he faces up to them all, from the mutiny itself to his relationship with May Wynn, which in the novel doesn't end with him marrying her, but with him looking for her again after they've broken up.
share MacMurray played a very similar role in The Apartment. Very adept at it. You have to wonder whether many actors (like Reagan perhaps) would have felt uncomfortable?
Kisskiss, Bangbang
Fred MacMurray specialized in playing nice guys, and he apparently was a nice guy in real life. I think it's ironic that his 3 best movie roles were as villains--Walter Neff in Double Indemnity, Tom Keefer in the Caine Mutiny, and Jeff Sheldrake in The Apartment. Each of those roles was Oscar-worthy.
shareIn the book, Willie feels that deep down he backed Maryk because he felt that Maryk was more likely to save the ship. Afterwards, once he's had a chance to think about it, he realizes that it shouldn't have come to that. He thinks that either Queeg would've come around and head into the wind on his own, or he would've given into Maryk's suggestions and done so.
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