The Ship That Died | |
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Directed by | Jacques Tourneur |
Written by | George Sayer |
Starring | John Nesbitt Leonard Penn Rhea Mitchell |
Cinematography | Lester White |
Production company | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) |
Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) |
Release date |
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Running time | 10 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
The Ship That Died is a 1938 American short film directed by Jacques Tourneur for MGM. Written by George Sayer and featuring John Nesbitt, Leonard Penn, and Rhea Mitchell, it presents dramatisations of a range of theories (mutiny, fear of explosion due to alcohol fumes, and the supernatural) of the ship Mary Celeste . [1]
The film opens on a clear and brilliant day in the harbour of old New York. The morning tide was a familiar scene, putting many ships out to sea. There was a bustle of men taking on cargo, and men saying goodbye to people they wouldn't see again until spring. There was sunlight, a good wind, and the tang of salt in the air.
The narrator explains this is all perfectly normal, except for that this is also a true story about a murder, but not the murder of a person, rather it is a story of the murder of a haunted ship, the "ship that died".
November 7th, 1872, the sailing yacht emblasoned with the name Mary Celeste is spotted at latitude 370 North, longitude 18 west. The Mary Celeste is under Full Sail, but when the crew of the ship that spotted the Mary Celeste boards it, they find out that there is no one on board. A search of the vessel reveals that the Longboat is secured on the deck, a barrel of alcohol is open with some missing, the Captain's Log book has the last pages torn out (but his watch still keeps time), and there is a large knife stained with rust or blood found stored in the captain's quarters.
December of 1872, in the famed nautical Club at the Rock of Gibraltar, a group of people meet to hypothesize the reason why the Mary Celeste was abandoned.
Three theories were proposed:
1. The ship's crew got drunk and muntanied against their captain.
2. The ship was abandoned because there was a fear of fire when the alcohol leak was discovered.
3. Some unknown force is responsible.
The film ends with the narrator acknowledging that the only thing they really know is that there were people on the ship, then later on, there wasn't anybody on the ship.
Mary Celeste was a Canadian-built, American-registered merchant brigantine that was discovered adrift and deserted in the Atlantic Ocean off the Azores on December 4, 1872. The Canadian brigantine Dei Gratia found her in a dishevelled but seaworthy condition under partial sail and with her lifeboat missing. The last entry in her log was dated ten days earlier. She had left New York City for Genoa on November 7 and was still amply provisioned when found. Her cargo of alcohol was intact, and the captain's and crew's personal belongings were undisturbed. None of those who had been on board were ever seen or heard from again.
A ghost ship, also known as a phantom ship, is a vessel with no living crew aboard; it may be a fictional ghostly vessel, such as the Flying Dutchman, or a physical derelict found adrift with its crew missing or dead, like the Mary Celeste. The term is sometimes used for ships that have been decommissioned but not yet scrapped, as well as drifting boats that have been found after breaking loose of their ropes and being carried away by the wind or the waves.
Benjamin Spooner Briggs was an experienced American seaman and master mariner. He was the captain of the merchant ship Mary Celeste, which was discovered unmanned and drifting in the Atlantic Ocean midway between the Azores and the coast of Portugal on December 4, 1872. The lifeboat was missing, yet the Mary Celeste was still under sail. Briggs, his wife Sarah and their two-year-old daughter Sophia Matilda were never found and were presumed lost, along with the crew of Mary Celeste.
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