Sealed Cargo (1951)

• Directed by Alfred L. Werker.

• Screenplay by Dale Van Every, Oliver H.P. Garrett, & Roy Huggins, from the novel “The Gaunt Woman” by Edmund Gilligan.

• “Foreword:

When war engulfs the world, giant forces are marshaled for conflict. Smashing victories are won and heroes are heralded far and wide.

Often forgotten are the small victories, the acts of great personal courage by little people.

This is the story of one small victory in World War II.”

• We begin said Small Victory story in “Gloucester, Massachusetts – 1943,” where Dana Andrews is Patrick Banyon, a fisherman boat captain whose halibut-ing is deemed by the U.S. Navy to be too valuable of a job to be abandoned in favor of war-sailoring. Captain Banyon is annoyed by this.

• Captain Pat seems to be very much a (sea) creature of habit – but one day, he agrees to take aboard the Daniel Webster (that’s the name of his haliboat) two new people: a Danish dude called Konrad (Phillip Dorn), who joins the fish-work crew, and a Canadian woman called Margaret McLean (Carla Balenda), who is looking to hitch a ride home(-ish) to her father, who currently resides in Trabo, a “little harbor off the coast of Newfoundland.”

• A few days (?) out to sea, the Daniel Webster float-stumbles upon the wreckage of a (conveniently) Danish schooner called “Den Magre Kvinda” (or, as Konrad & fellow Dane Holger (Eric Feldary) translate: “The Gaunt Woman”), out of Copenhagen. All of the Websterians are immediately baffle-intrigued, and Captain Pat is like, ‘Oooh, you guys – we absolutely must investigate.’

• The film handles the exploratory crew (Captain Pat, the Danes, & regular fish-sailor Caleb (Morgan Farley))’s slow, trepidation-filled walk around the dark-‘n’-creepy schooner deck really stellarly, concealing much – in a visual sense – with pitch-black shadows, arming the group with a solitary beam of light (Captain Pat’s flashlight), while also employing a near-total, tension-increasing silence as they explore. (Cinematography credit: George E. Diskant.)

• Tucked inside the cabin of the eerie murkster of a tattered-ass shipboat, the Websterians discover a man named Captain Skalder (Claude Rains), who is alive and who greets the group by disconcertingly, wide-eyedly staring at them until he collapses. (It seems highly probable that the dude-captain has been concussed.)

• As best as I can make out (I’d be lying if I claimed to have a clear understanding of the maritime/”salvage”/shipboat-attack plot jargon thrown around, here) – Captain Skalder & his dishonorable, largely inept crew were toting a large stash of rum to Halifax, when a Nazi U-boat fired on them, forcing everyone to abandon ship(boat).

According to Skalder, he & loyal (ship)boat man Eric managed to return to Den Magre Kvinda – only to be catastrophized by a rude-ass sea storm…leaving Eric dead (womp, womp) and Captain Skalder alone and head-damaged.

• Great news, folks! Though every other character’s words and motivations remain dubious at best – coffee-brewing GalPal Margaret has at least been telling the truth…as a uniformed father-captain called James McLean (Onslow Stevens) appears at the Docks o’ Trabo to meet the Magre Kvinda-towing Daniel Webster, upon its sea-plodding arrival.

(For what it’s worth, I would also like to believe that we can trust Captain Pat, because he seems stoically, heroically honest and he’s also, you know, Dana Andrews – – but this is 1950s MovieWorld, so who the hell can say for sure what this dude might actually be up to.)

• Oho! Our man Konrad turns out to be an intrepid, detectiving truth-teller, too – who’s like, ‘Captain Pat. Bro. Holger’s totes a Nazi, this ‘wrecked ship’ is defs an enemy sea vehicle, and I 100% believe it is deceit-hauling a lot more than fucking rum barrels.’

Captain Pat is like, ‘Great work, I’m sorry I ever doubted you, wanna help me find the hidden, motorized trigger for the Secret Cargo Hold door?’

Konrad’s like, ‘Doooooope. Let’s unearth us some Sea Nazi Secrets.’

• With the assistance of some MovieWorld clumsiness luck, the Wary Bros o’ Webster are soon staring a shit-ton of hush-hush torpedoes in the below-deck face, and unnoticedly spy Holger sending nefarious Sea Nazi messages from the Secret Torpedo Basement’s Secret Control Room.

Huzzah!

• Konrad & Captain Pat gather their ‘We’re fish people and this Sea Nazi shit is way above our pay grade, but since we’re decents, we’ll engage in some fightery anyway’ crew – while also alert-informing the McLeans, so they can begin shepherding the…Trabolians? Trabillagers? outta the prospective Blast Zone.

• Y’all, this musical score (credit: Roy Webb) is pretty fantastic. It really plays up the suspense and tension in the parts that need it, in a way that’s effectively, enrichingly compelling.

• Aw, hell – Sea Nazi Skalder suspects a thwartment, and takes Margaret hostage.

Save her, Captain Charisma Pat! Save her!

• “If he bats an eye – blow it out of his head,” Captain Pat instructs Konrad, as the Websterian Fish Dudes re-capture the Magre Kvinda from Captain Skalder and his crew of German sea dopes.

That is a marvelously badass line, and I really like Andrews’s delivery of it.

• Clever Captain Fish-Charisma floats the Gaunt Lady further off shore, where an explosion will harm no one on land – while also using it as bait for the Sea Nazi submarines he knows have already been signaled to come rescue the Hot-Commodity Torpedo Stash.

Poor, valiant Konrad is shot-murdered by Sea Nazi Skalder in the process of all this occurring – but at least he’s able to death-snipe Skalder back, before he goes.

• Where any of these Halibut Pals learned how to rig an under-deck, torpedo-based time bomb, I have absolutely zero idea……however, their Submarine Explosion Plan works flawlessly, and they become Instant Ocean Heroes to the Trabillagers who await them in the splashy, cliffside darkness-cove, ashore. Captain Pat and (frustratingly spotless & sparkly clean) Hostage Margaret get stoically huggy in the night-time beach water – and that, my friends, is our movie’s end.

• This is a really solidly constructed, well-told story, that’s lit and photographed rather fantastically, and that features admirable performances from Andrews, Rains, & Dorn. I wish Carla Balenda had taken her character to grittier, fiercer places, as perhaps an actress like Ann Sheridan or Ingrid Bergman would’ve done – but that’s really my only major complaint.

• You’d do well to keep an eye out for this film…though I’d be careful not to bat said eye, because…

Well, you know.