SEVEN WAVES AWAY (U.S. TITLE: ABANDON SHIP)

UK, 1956, 95 minutes, Black and white.
Tyrone Power, Mai Zetterling, Lloyd Nolan, Stephen Boyd, Moira Lister, Marie Lohr, Gordon Jackson.
Directed by Richard Sale.

Seven Waves Away (Abandon Ship) has the elements of a disaster film: a ship being destroyed and a few survivors having to manage. It is particularly grim in its style. However, the film moves to a court case in which the officer who tried to save people (even having to make judgments about who was to survive) is tried for his responsibility in people's deaths. The people who have been rescued turn on their rescuer. This makes for dramatic courtroom confrontation as well as a strong emotional response from the audience. Tyrone Power leads a prominent English cast in this brief adventure and courtroom drama. The film was remade for television in the mid-,170s by Lee H. Katzin and was called The Last Survivors. It has a group of actors and actresses who appear regularly in telemovies but the central role of the officer is played by Martin Sheen, a very talented actor in television and films - especially his central role in Apocalypse Now!

Seven Waves Away (Abandon Ship) was based loosely on a Gary Cooper film of the '30s, directed by Henry Hathaway: Souls at Sea, which also involved a disaster and court sequences.

1. How interesting a film, how serious, entertainment? Its overall impact, message?

2. The indication of the title? The alternative title - Abandon Ship. The atmosphere of the sea, the ship. disaster, survival and decisions?

3. The use of black and white photography, the moods and atmosphere of the sea? The contrast between the ship.. the lifeboat? The musical score for the atniDsphere of the disaster?

4. Audience response to disasters and accidents? Identifying with the situation, with the survivors, particular types in the lifeboat?

5. The them of survival and man's wanting desperately to live? The people in the lifeboat. the people hanging on? The significance of life? The overwhelming fear? Motivations, greed, selfishness?

6. How interesting was the cross-section of people: the varying types, good and bad, selfish and selfless? Crew and passengers, men and women?

7. Were the survivors types or were they dramatised characters? Did they represent issues and values? Did they typify various responses to dangers and fears?

8. Tyrone Power as the hero? How heroic was he by temperament and character? His role on the ship, in the lifeboat? As a person, doing his duty? The questions of conscience, emotions? The difficulty of his decisions? The criteria for people who were to die? His motives? The effect of these decisions on himself, on the various people? How well did the film offer pros and cons for his decisions? Did some people have to die?

9. The presentation of the people? The situation of the dog and the indication of what was to follow? Those who stayed? Those who had to go, those who decided to go? The bonds of fear?

10. The significance of Julle and her support of Holmes? Her place on the lifeboat?

11. The character of McKinley? and the clash with Holmes? A legitimate point of view? Fear? Orders and duty?

12. The significance of Kelly, his words of advice, the impact of his death?

13. How important was the dialogue, the interaction of the characters revealing themselves and their attitudes, especially Edith with her background, her sarcastic way of speaking? Her spurning of her lover? Her rising to the occasion?

14. Other minor characters and the way they were presented? The playwright, elderly couple?

15. The impact of the rescue ship arriving? The survivors? Holmes changing from hero to villain and the fickle aspects of human nature in the survivors turning against him?

16. The purpose of making the film? Entertainment? A serious story? Insight into human nature and themes of conscience?