Slave Ship ****

What is taboo? What should not be discussed?

These are not rhetorical questions as far as I'm concerned. I really don't know. Can the art of film making be judged on its own without looking at the context? To that question, I will say yes since for decades I was one of D.W. Griffith's loudest defenders. There really is no questioning the racism in Birth of a Nation, which is is indefensible, but the greatness of that movie is not subjective, it's objective. Every film you see today has been influenced by the work of Griffith and his great Director of Photography Billy Bitzer. That is a fact.

We run into the same problem while watching Leni Riefenstal's Triumph of the Will. It's without a doubt a great movie. The visuals and the editing are stunning, but it is also a dangerous movie - far more dangerous than Birth of a Nation. Triumph of the Will is a marvelous propaganda piece showing the greatness of the Nazi party. So marvelous that I actually felt queasy several times during one screening.

Should this film be destroyed? I would say no. No matter how dangerous, I would be hesitant to destroy anything that can teach us something, no matter how unpleasant. Both of these films teach us not only about how to make a great film, but also about the darker recesses of the human spirit. We may not like to admit this but people who believe this stuff do exist and they may be sitting on the train next to you. This brings us to today's movie - Slave Ship. This movie would not be made today and that's a shame because it is a topic that is not looked at enough in history classes. The Nazi's were horrific enough, but at least they had some ideology, no matter how disgraceful. Slave traders had none. They destroyed millions of lives for profit. What the hell would possess someone to do this?

This movie looks at the men who make their living trading slaves back in 1860. If the movie was made today, these guys would just be the same black and white bad guys without looking at the actual people. This movie actually looks at the people. The ship owner and the first mate are played by Warner Baxter and Wallace Beery respectively and they don't come anymore underrated than these two. Baxter actually won an Oscar for his performance in In Old Arizona, but that movie was horrible, so I don't count it. Baxter and Berry just give one solid honest effort after another and they are both on top of their game here.

Baxter is a little uncomfortable with how he makes his living and tells Beery that this trip will be their last in this line of work. Baxter is about to be married and he wants to go legitimate, trading non-humans. There is less money doing this type of work, but that doesn't bother Baxter as long as his conscience will be clear from now on. There's nothing wrong with Beery's conscience or that of the crew for that matter. With that in mind, they don't like the boss's business decision so they revolt. And there you go. You have to go get it to find out the rest.

It’s a very interesting movie. The story is by William Faulkner, which considering the topic, provides for some legitimacy. There are also some Faulkner touches that can be seen in some of the unique and eccentric Southern characters.

The final script was not credited to Faulkner and those parts are evident as well. Faulker’s has a smooth, steady writing style even when he was experimenting. There are not a lot of scenes in Bill’s work which would be considered jarring, but there are many such moments in Slave Ship. The most famous of these scenes is where the crew comes up with a repulsive and horrifying way to hide evidence from an invading English policing ship. To give you a hint, this scene would be replayed 60 years later in a film called Amistad.

Slave Ship is not a masterpiece, but it is an emotional, disturbing, unsettling and upsetting lost classic which deserves a better fate than it has received. Some people go to the movies to get away from their stressful lives and to be taken on a fantasy ride. That’s fine, but if you go to the movies to be challenged and to learn about something you might not know about, then this is the flick for you. There are evil people in this world and if you just want to call them evil and not learn how they got that way, more power to you, but that’s how World War II got started.

Sometimes there are things in this world that are uncomforatable and it's not dangerous to look at it; it is dangerous not to. Of course, the same studio I applaud for making this film also decided to leave most of the black actors uncredited. I guess good will and humanity only go so far.