Review of The Last Voyage (1960) by Jessica H — 24 Aug 2007

I saw this movie when I was a little girl and recently decided to see if I could locate it on DVD. I did and it was just as good as when I originially saw it. Who needs Titanic when you can have real people on a real flooded ship and not on some gigantic backlot?! The premise.

..a sinking ocean liner, a trapped woman, a loyal husband and a heroic ship hand may be formulaic but it works here. The movie also makes a statement regarding race...the scene where Woody Strode offers to take the little girl and put her on a life boat.

..well everyone knows you can't trust black men with your white daughter! But this movie rises above that as Robert Stack (at first giving Woody a double take) entrusts his daughter to a stranger and a black man.

The camera work is great...as they are leaving the flooding ocean liner (the real deal BTW...Ile de France or something like that...real luxury ocean liner) you can see the camera moving and being splashed with water.

The little girl in the movie over-acts except for 2 scenes...the one where she is trapped on a ledge in front of a gaping hole in the ship which requires her to crawl across a plank to the safety of Robert Stack.

The second is where Woody Strode is taking her back to the deck away from her mother. She fights him all the way, sobbing. She even holds onto the door. Both great scenes. I give this movie a '10' because it's a 'throw back' to when actors REALLY had to be physically fit to do movies, because of the realism of the danger and because I love old movies that are really good.

We are 'special effects' to death today! It thrilled me at 10 and 40+years later, I still enjoyed it!