It's only about 50 minutes but one of the most shocking horror movies ever made, although there is no blood, no death, no violence, no crime, no nothing, just fog and a desert island where "nothing is alive and nothing is dead". James Donald and Barbara Rush are an ideal newly married couple, and she insists on following him on a long voyage around Cape Horn from Portsmouth to Japan and China, he doesn't want to expose her to that risk, it's a sailing ship, the story is from 1907, and there are marvellous sequences of her beauty, a ship that any sailor must love. He is first mate, after the Cape they meet with hard weather and are shipwrecked, only they survive and float on some flotsam around in the fog on a dead calm sea until they meet with a deserted ship, overgrown with some sort of a fungus. They find means to survive on that ship and can't understand the mystery of what happened to the crew, until they find the ship is grounded on a reef outside a nearby island. That island is also overgrown with the same kind of fungus. As the fog never lifts and everything is constantly kept soaked, that's how the fungus thrive, and they find a spot on that island on which the fungus can't grow and settle there, waiting for a ship to pass. There is a ship finally passing, but the situation is then more complicated.
James Donald made several unforgettable roles mainly as doctors, like in "White Corridors" and "The Bridge on the River Kwai", and Barbara Rush was here in the beginning of a long successful career, like also the director Arthur Hiller. The great love story between them, their fine acting together, a magnificent music score (uncredited), an equally efficient cinematography and above all a totally convincing story of excruciating horror make this film unforgettable forever for everyone who saw it back in the 50s - and it seems they all want to see it again.
James Donald made several unforgettable roles mainly as doctors, like in "White Corridors" and "The Bridge on the River Kwai", and Barbara Rush was here in the beginning of a long successful career, like also the director Arthur Hiller. The great love story between them, their fine acting together, a magnificent music score (uncredited), an equally efficient cinematography and above all a totally convincing story of excruciating horror make this film unforgettable forever for everyone who saw it back in the 50s - and it seems they all want to see it again.