Movie review – Bela – “The Phantom Ship” (1936) **1/2 (warning – spoilers)

From time to time Bela Lugosi ducked over to England to make a film and this was one of the better efforts of his career. It has a strong story, being based on the mystery of the Marie Celeste, the ghost ship found in the Atlantic in the 19th century. Some of the acting is creaky but there is a satisfying amount of subplots going on to keep the viewer interested – Bela is a bitter one armed sailor with his own reasons for going on the ship, the captain has pinched his wife from his former best friend, a sailor (Dennis Hoey) is a deranged rapist. The crew are knocked off one by one and in the end... none are left. That’s right - none (well, Bela running around on an empty deck going mad in the film’s most visually striking sequence). Its a shame we don’t get the scene where Bela cuts off the captain and his wife on a lifeboat (presumably for censorship reasons - or the copy I saw may have been one of the edited ones floating around) but is still a surprisingly satisfying effort.