During his career directing movies, John Frankenheimer had an amazing record of great films to his credit. Think about it...he directed "Seven Days in May", the first (and best) "Manchurian Candidate", "The French Connection II", "Seconds", and "The Train" among others. So, it's very surprising when you see "The Extraordinary Seaman"...a bad film actually directed by this great man. According to IMDB, he needed to pay for a divorce...and so he took this slight film. Thankfully, the movie was soon forgotten and Frankenheimer's legacy managed to survive this!
A group of four American sailors are stranded on a lonely island during WWII. Their chance to escape arrives when they come upon a boat that's stuck in the lagoon and a lone British officer (David Niven) gets them to help him dislodge the ship and promises to take them to Australia...back to their forces. However, over time, it seems that the British officer just ain't right....and I'll say more because I don't want to spoil the plot..as if anyone would really care.
The basic story idea is not bad at all. But the problem is the style of movie...and Frankenheimer, sadly, would be to blame for the look of the film. Again and again, to show the audience how funny and clever the picture is, they intercut stock footage of all sorts of WWII era stuff...stuff that is very awkwardly inserted and simply isn't funny. In fact, it's really annoying...especially when they played these clips backwards and forwards again and again for added fun(??). Additionally, the supposed laughs are punctuated with 'funny' sound effects or music. In each case, it feels as if the filmmakers are trying to get us to laugh by telling us when to laugh...almost like inserting a laugh track into the movie. But the problem is that none of these moments are the least bit funny! As a result, it seems as if the film knew it was a turkey and thought adding these things would somehow make audiences howl with laughter...which they didn't. Overall, a desperately bad job of direction make this a sad addition to Frankenheimer's long list of accomplishments. Sadly, it's a grating film...not a great film.
My aunt watched it with me and summed it up well with "It might be a decent film IF they didn't constantly interrupt with all that old footage!".
A group of four American sailors are stranded on a lonely island during WWII. Their chance to escape arrives when they come upon a boat that's stuck in the lagoon and a lone British officer (David Niven) gets them to help him dislodge the ship and promises to take them to Australia...back to their forces. However, over time, it seems that the British officer just ain't right....and I'll say more because I don't want to spoil the plot..as if anyone would really care.
The basic story idea is not bad at all. But the problem is the style of movie...and Frankenheimer, sadly, would be to blame for the look of the film. Again and again, to show the audience how funny and clever the picture is, they intercut stock footage of all sorts of WWII era stuff...stuff that is very awkwardly inserted and simply isn't funny. In fact, it's really annoying...especially when they played these clips backwards and forwards again and again for added fun(??). Additionally, the supposed laughs are punctuated with 'funny' sound effects or music. In each case, it feels as if the filmmakers are trying to get us to laugh by telling us when to laugh...almost like inserting a laugh track into the movie. But the problem is that none of these moments are the least bit funny! As a result, it seems as if the film knew it was a turkey and thought adding these things would somehow make audiences howl with laughter...which they didn't. Overall, a desperately bad job of direction make this a sad addition to Frankenheimer's long list of accomplishments. Sadly, it's a grating film...not a great film.
My aunt watched it with me and summed it up well with "It might be a decent film IF they didn't constantly interrupt with all that old footage!".