Ship of Fools (film)

Ship of Fools is a 1965 film about a varied group of passengers boarding a ship bound for pre-WWII Germany that represents a microcosm of early-1930s society. Directed by Stanley Kramer. Written by Abby Mann, based on the 1962 novel by Katherine Anne Porter. Mary Treadwell If you can't get what you want, you damn well better settle for what you can get. Everybody on this ship is in love. Love me whether or not I love you. Love me whether I am fit to love. Love me whether I am able to love. Even if there is no such thing as love. Love me. [to herself in the mirror] You are not young Mrs. Treadwell. You have not been young for years. [lights cigarette] Behind those old eyes, you hide a sixteen-year-old heart. Poor fool. [puts cigarette out] Is that what men really find attractive? Baby, you just haven't managed to grow up, Mrs. Treadwell - of Murray Hill, Virginia. Now, you can paint your toenails gooey...you know how it ends don't you? Alone, sitting in a cafe, with a paid escort. [starts to cry] La Condesa Did you ever have all the worst possible things that can happen to you, happen? Well, it gives you the most irresponsible feeling. Nothing more can happen. Dr. Wilhelm Schumann I wonder if it's true, that life is as stupid and meaningless as it seems to be on this ship. Glocken [first lines; walks up to the ship's railing] My name is Karl Glocken, and this is a ship of fools. I'm a fool, and you'll meet more fools as we go along. This tub is packed with them: emancipated ladies, ball players, lovers, dog lovers, ladies of joy, tolerant Jews, dwarfs - all kinds. And who knows, if you look closely enough, you may even find yourself on board. I am sorry. I don't mean to pry. You know, the distasteful curiosity of the nonparticipant. One of the saddest things in the world must be to see two people who feel so much for each other and who feel that they belong together and, yet they really don't belong together at all. Lowenthal I like people; if you look for it, you can find something good in anybody. Jenny Brown I think I've been happiest when I was dancing... sometimes I wish that I'd tied a tape measure to my ankle when I danced all my life - then I could tell you how many miles I traveled when I was happiest. My mother's never been satisfied with it. She taught me that a woman had to have something of her very own outside of her husband; otherwise, it was bridge games and one day a week at the hospital. Fat Man God? There is not God down here. You know what I would do if God were here? I would curse him to his face. I would spit in his face! I would turn him down into his own Hell! Miracle? What miracle? Can you make us a miracle? Can you get us out of this slop and into the upper decks where a man can breathe? That is a miracle! Dialogue Capt. Thiele: I'm glad to get out of Veracruz. The whole damn country is ready to explode. Well, did you get a look at them? Anything interesting? Anything interesting at all? Dr. Wilhelm Schumann: There is a dwarf. That high. [holds his hand level with his hip] A couple of young American painters. And a Jewish salesman - with an infectious sense of humor. Capt. Thiele: Women, Willie. Women! Dr. Wilhelm Schumann: Well, a rather attractive middle-aged American woman, but I'm afraid she's too far from the cradle for you. Capt. Thiele: Those are the kind that can sometimes appreciate what they are getting. David: What's the matter? Jenny Brown: Twenty-six days in separate beds. It's probably a very good thing. We'll get to know each other. We'll find out whether we have anything going for us besides sex. Rieber: Lowenthal, you know it is a historical fact that the Jews are the basis of our misfortunes. Lowenthal: Of course. Rieber: You agree? Lowenthal: Of course. The Jews and the bicycle riders. Rieber: The bicycle riders? Why the bicycle riders? Lowenthal: Why the Jews? Bill Tenny: What do they got against the Jews? Back home, we don't have anything against the Jews. Hell, I never even saw a Jew until I was fifteen. Mary Treadwell: Maybe you were too busy lynching Negroes to take time out for the Jews. Lowenthal: You aren't Jewish, are you? Glocken: No. I have my own minority group. Lowenthal: They usually leave a Jew a table of his own, on a boat like this. Why do you think they put us together? Glocken: It's their way of being friendly. Lowenthal: You are sure, you are not Jewish? Glocken: [makes iffy hand gesture] Reasonably sure. Lowenthal: You resemble a brother-in-law of mine in Stuttgart. Glocken: [chuckles] That's the way it is, people are always mistaking me for someone else. [both chuckle] Freytag: Doesn't it bother you that you and that little man are the only two Germans not at the Captain's Table? Lowenthal: Do you think that bothers me? Besides, I like that little man; what kind of salesman do you think I would be if I couldn't deal with a situation like that? A salesman is supposed to deal a difficult situation and overcome it. Listen, it's not a new story: white men hate black men, Muslims hate Buddhists-that's the way it goes. There's prejudice everywhere. It does no good to give it back. You have got to use your noggin'. Lowenthal: Listen to that music, Glocken. Don't try to tell me you don't react to that music. Glocken: Schmulz. Lowenthal: Hmph, tell me, Glocken, now honestly, when you hear that music, wherever you are, don't you have a special feeling about being a German? Glocken: I'll tell you, Leaven's honor, honestly, when I hear that music, wherever I am, I have a special feeling about being a dwarf. Lowenthal: Ah, I remember being thousands of miles from home in a movie theater in New York; they put on a picture of the funeral of the Kaiserin Victoria. That good woman, how much she meant to all of us. Glocken: [rolls eyes] You are German, aren't you? You are the most German person I have ever met. Lowenthal: [chuckles] Oh, I want to show you something. I take it out every once in a while and look at it when I want to feel good. Glocken: Well, the order of the Iron Cross, second class - and a war hero besides. You may be the biggest fool on this whole boat. Lowenthal: [looks offended] Why do you say that? Glocken: Where have you been during this voyage? Lowenthal: Do you think this boat is a cross-section of the German people? Huh, no. You don't know the average German the way I know him. The people that produced a Goethe, a Beethoven, and a Bach are not to be sneezed at, you know. Glocken: Fifty percent of the people who produced a Goethe, a Beethoven, and a Bach voted for Rieber's party last week! Lowenthal: Forty-four percent. Glocken: Lowenthal, you are blind; you're absolutely blind! You can't see what's going on in front of your own face. Lowenthal: What do you mean? Ah, you mean this business about the Jews? You don't understand us. The German-Jew is something special. We are Germans first and Jews second. We have done so much for Germany; Germany has done so much for us. A little patience, a little good will; it works itself out. Huh, listen, there are nearly a million Jews in Germany. What are they going to do? Kill all of us? [Glocken looks frightened] La Condesa: I'm sure you never have any problems sleeping. Dr. Wilhelm Schumann: No, never. La Condesa: Tell me your secret. Dr. Wilhelm Schumann: A clear conscience, of course. La Condesa: [sarcastically] That's a neat trick: having a clear conscience when you work as a doctor on a ship which has six hundred people living on an open deck. La Condesa: To think, isn't it wonderful: two strangers on a ship - we will never meet again. We can talk - we can talk like friends, or even lovers... we can talk like two people who meet on the other side of the grave. Dr. Wilhelm Schumann: Keep talking. Lowenthal: How old are you? Elsa: Sixteen. Lowenthal: Adolescence. What is adolescence? Adolescence is a time when people worry about things there's no need to worry about. Sixteen... I promise you, at seventeen you will be even more charming than you are now. At twenty-one, you will be gorgeous. And at twenty-five... devastating! And I won't stand any arguments! Jenny Brown: David's an artist. A wonderful one. He's caught up with social conscience right now, but he'll get over that. Mary Treadwell: Is it serious? Jenny Brown: I never felt about anybody the way I do about David. Only that David thinks a woman should follow three paces behind - with slippers. Mary Treadwell: Men usually do. My husband certainly did. Dr. Wilhelm Schumann: What are you laughing at? La Condesa: My house has been burned, they have taken everything I had - now I am being taken to prison to an island I know nothing about, and you are giving me a Sunday School sermon. Dr. Wilhelm Schumann: You can put your robe back on, now. Bill Tenny: You don't know what its like to be out there and the crowd's yellin' for you to deliver. And they start talkin'. Pitchers they talk. "You can't hit a curve ball on the outside corner." And from then on out, that's all you see is curve balls on the outside corner. So, you've had your big chance. And you have muffed it. Now, I can still hear my old man yellin' at me from the stands, even though he wasn't there, "Big wheel, you are a bum! You are a bum just like me." Glocken: You know, I think you're being a bit harsh on yourself, Herr Tenny. Bill Tenny: A bum. Glocken: You know, I travel a lot. My folks give me some money, not much, but some. They are more comfortable when I'm not around, but you know what I find? I find the most amusing things about people are their guilts that they drum up for themselves. For instance, I estimate that there must be at least 873 million people in the world who don't even know what a curve ball on the outside corner is. So, I think it a bit excessive for you think that you have muffed your whole life just because you couldn't hit it! Paddle or no paddle. Lizzi Spoekenkieker: Do you know what they say in Mexico? Mexicans loathe the Americans, hate the Spaniards, distrust the English, admire the French, and love the Germans. Rieber: That is all very nice. I am glad they say those things, but, as far as I am concerned, after a few weeks in Mexico, you can keep the Mexicans too. Dr. Wilhelm Schumann: Who puts 600 people on a deck with only two outlets to wash? Lt. Huebner: Huh, you don't know them; they wouldn't wash if they could. You don't know what pigs they are. Dr. Wilhelm Schumann: The deck is to be cleaned. Bring the hoses out. Lt. Huebner: The hoses? Dr. Wilhelm Schumann: Bring the hoses out, I said! Lt. Huebner: I cannot turn the hoses on them. Dr. Wilhelm Schumann: It's better to turn the hoses on them than for them live this way, no? Bill Tenny: What's the matter? Don't you make any money paintin'? David: No. Bill Tenny: Oh, now wait a minute. Come on, wait a minute. You mean to tell me that you work at somethin' that you can't make a livin' off, so you got to take a job to make enough money to go on workin' at the work you can't live on? Glocken: But that is the heroic life. That is the way men who trust themselves can afford to live. Dr. Wilhelm Schumann: When I had my heart attack, there was a dream I had. You can talk about death - I've seen it many times as a doctor - but you never know what it's like until it happens to you... I dreamt I had already died. I dreamt I was in a box with sweat broke out all over my body. I wanted to cry out 'I can't be dead, I haven't lived!'. Capt. Thiele: Who has? David: Look, I need all the help I can get. I need someone who can believe in a man who hasn't proven himself yet. Someone to be there. To be for me. Glocken: Couldn't Fräulein Brown be that? David: Fräulein Brown is a modern woman. Their needs are a lot more complicated than our mother's were. About Ship of Fools Stanley Kramer has fetched a powerful, ironic film ... there is such wealth of reflection upon the human condition in Ship of Fools and so subtle an orchestration of the elements of love and hate, achieved through an expert compression of the novel by Mr. Kramer and his script writer, Abby Mann, that it is really not fair to tag it with the label of any previous film. It has its own quiet distinction in the way it illuminates a theme. Bosley Crowther, "Review: Ship of Fools". The New York Times, July 29, 1965. Retrieved: October 10, 2013. Cast Vivien Leigh - Mary Treadwell Simone Signoret - La Condesa José Ferrer - Rieber Lee Marvin - Bill Tenny Oskar Werner - Dr. Wilhelm Schumann Elizabeth Ashley - Jenny Brown George Segal - David Jose Greco - Pepe Michael Dunn - Glocken Charles Korvin - Capt. Thiele Heinz Rühmann - Lowenthal Lilia Skala - Frau Hutten Barbara Luna - Amparo Christiane Schmidtmer - Lizzi Alf Kjellin - Freytag Werner Klemperer - Lt. Huebner John Wengraf - Graf Olga Fabian - Frau Schmitt Gila Golan - Elsa Oscar Beregi - Lutz Stanley Adams - Hutten Karen Verne - Frau Lutz Charles de Vries - Johann Lydia Torea - Pastora Henry Calvin - Fat Man Peter Mamakos - Religious Man Paul Daniel - Carlos David Renard - Woodcarver Rudy Carrella - Ric Silvia Marino - Rac Anthony Brand - Guitarist External links 0059712 ship_of_fools Ship of Fools Category:1965 American films Category:1965 English-language films Category:American drama films Category:Psychological drama films Category:Films based on American novels Category:Films set on ships Category:Films set in the 1930s Category:Seafaring films Category:Films directed by Stanley Kramer Category:Spanish-language American films