The Ghost Ship (1943)

Directed by

Mark Robson

Genre

drama film, horror film, mystery film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 09m

Rated

NR

Rating

6.3 of 10 from 75 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A young merchant marine officer becomes convinced that his ship's captain is mentally unstable and a danger to the crew. The crew believes the ship is haunted as mysterious deaths start to occur.

suspensefultenseominouspsychologicalclaustrophobiceerieslow-burnmelodramatic

What happens

The Ghost Ship is a 1943 American black-and-white psychological thriller film starring Richard Dix and directed by Mark Robson. It was produced by Val Lewton for RKO Radio Pictures as part of a series of low-budget horror films. The film can be seen as a "low-key psychological thriller", a "suspense drama", and a "waterlogged melodrama". Russell Wade, Edith Barrett, Ben Bard and Edmund Glover appear in support. The film is about a young merchant marine officer who begins to suspect that his ship's captain is mentally unbalanced and endangering the lives of the ship's crew. The ship's crew, however, believes the vessel to be haunted and cursed and several mysterious deaths occur. Upon its theatrical release on Christmas Eve, 1943, the film was a box office success but received a mixed critical reception. In February 1944, Lewton was sued for plagiarism by playwrights Samuel R. Golding and Norbert Faulkner, who claimed that the script was based on a play that was submitted to Lewton for a possible film. Because of the suit, The Ghost Ship was withdrawn from theatrical release and not shown for nearly 50 years. It was not until the film's copyright was not renewed and it entered the public domain in the 1990s, that it began to be available again, and was released as part of the Val Lewton Horror Collection DVD set in 2005. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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