When the first officer of an ocean liner (James Mason) finally gets a chance to captain his own ship it turns out to be the one on which crew members Broderick Crawford and Stuart Whitman are plotting to kill the ship's entire crew and somehow collect a million dollars in insurance. Entirely claustrophobic setting of the ship goes well with the plan to kill everyone. The overall sense of cold-blooded cruelty is a natural fit for Crawford, but Stuart Whitman's character turns out to possess a surprising degree of sliminess. How the great James Mason deals with this is but one of the great aspects of this under-appreciated masterpiece. Dorothy Dandridge, the cook's attractive wife, should have never been on the ship in the first place, but her presence is just another bit of the film's overall audacity and quality.

This B-Movie has a Few Things Going. First it is Off Beat and Surprisingly the Violence is Up Close and Disturbing for a Fifties Film. The On Location and On Board Filming is Authentic and Adds to the Realism. Director Stone seems to be Warming Up for His Masterpiece, The Last Voyage (1960) as it has the Same Setting and Crisp Camera Work and Hypertension.The A-Listers James Mason and Broderick Crawford, along with Sexpot Dorothy Dandridge (revealing Her charms more than typical for the Era), are OK, but the Rest of the Cast from Stuart Whitman on Down do some Pretty Bad Acting.This is a Film that is Stark and Quite Different in Tone than Most of the Films from the 1950's and has an Atmosphere of Dread that Works and there are some Scenes at Sea that are Extremely Well Done. Worth a Watch as a Tense Low-Budgeter and to See James Mason doing some Slumming and Swimming. Great Title.

The Decks Ran Red flaps as the title under which sets sail a tense and focused movie that takes place aboard a freighter. The Berwind sails into port in New Zealand because its captain has mysteriously died. Awarded his first command, James Mason flies in to take over as skipper of the troubled ship. He finds a slovenly and insubordinate crew, and his officers tell him that mutiny may be in the wind. Since some of the hands have jumped ship, Mason has some holes to fill. The only cook available will sign on only if he can bring his wife, Dorothy Dandridge (as a Maori whose command of the English language encompasses even the future-perfect tense). This sultry native, the only woman on board, doesn't cool down the smouldering unrest, but the arsonist is Broderick Crawford, who fuels the fires in order to advance his own half-baked scheme: To murder all the crew but a few henchmen, making it look like desertion and mutiny, then scuttle the ship and sell it and its cargo as salvage for $1-million. It's basically an old dark house story taken to the high seas, with murders aplenty and the briny deep to swallow up the corpses. And, despite Mason, Crawford and Dandridge, its production values are not those of The Titanic. Still, it sails brisky along (slackening a bit toward the stretched-out ending) under Andrew Stone's competent if lackluster direction.Stone and his wife Virginia were Hollywood's answer to the mama-papa candy store: He wrote and directed, she produced and edited. Their long career resulted in many forgettable films and some embarrassments as well (Song of Norway, for one). But there were a few modest successes, too: Highway 301, The Night Holds Terror, Blueprint for Murder. The Decks Ran Red can join them as a decidedly not luxurious but still seaworthy vessel.

Whether it actually is or not, this claustrophobic suspense yarn seems like a 'B' picture. Though Mason and Dandridge were in the midst of their best years career-wise, this seems like a step down...like something that one would do if there was no more quality work. The story (supposedly based on fact) concerns a ship Captain's (Mason) attempt to thwart a murder for riches scheme envisioned by Crawford and Whitman. The pair of thugs plan to make the crew seem like they're planning a mutiny so that it will be entered into the Captain's log. Then they will kill the crew, pretend to be the only survivors and bring the ship in for salvage worth over a million dollars. Crawford lumbers through the film with his usual style, but does present a threatening persona. Whitman struts around and poses in the world's clingiest jeans, his hair all '50's Bryll cream. It's hard to believe he was just three years away from a Best Actor nomination. Mason is believable as a Captain, but not as an action hero as he is later forced to become. A dash of feminine sex appeal is supplied by Dandridge who plays the wife of the ship's cook. She feels the need to serve the men on the boat while wearing snug dresses with deep necklines, which causes it's share of problems. Eventually, the opposing sides must play a cat and mouse game while running all around the ship. (And since it is a black and white film, the decks run grey!) The film has going for it some surprisingly stark moments of violence (for that time) and some creative camera-work in the confined bowels of the ship. Drawbacks include the bland settings, the fact that there's too much talk about what's happening in the story rather than letting the audience see it (crewmen keep coming back to the saloon to tell what's happening outside!) and a feverish, unintentionally hilarious performance by Cross as a third party in the scheme. Also, Bard, as Mason's wife, gives a bizarre performance, nervously looking at the floor through most of her brief scenes and swallowed up in an ugly coat. Still, it's a fairly tight little film with some degree of interest. TV fans may recognize old salt Patterson from "Green Acres".