I watched the Caine Mutiny last night for the first time in a long time. As a kid when I watched it, I was convinced that Queeg was absolutely crazy and that Greenwald’s masterful cross examination got him to show his insanity to the tribunal. He berated Keefer for standing by and allowing it to happen to write his novel.
After I watched it last night, I don’t think he really was. He was certainly eccentric, had an impulsive attention to detail, and was a very poor commander and leader of men. We are given four incidents to prove Queeg’s insanity:
The Tow Line Incident—he foolishly cuts his own tow line while berating a sailor for having his shirttail untucked. That speaks to being a poor commander.
The Yellow Stain Incident—it speaks to cowardice instead of insanity.
The Strawberries Incident—this one comes the closest, but again, can be chalked up to a “broken windows” style of policing the ship instead of insanity.
The Typhoon—a difference of opinion as to the best course for the ship during a high stress moment.
When I was watching, the typhoon began, and I thought, “What? This is what they will base a mutiny on?” I would have convicted Maryk and Keith. I would have also demoted Queeg to being in charge of inventory at base warehouse. Thoughts?
I’ve always thought that they could have handled it by bopping Queeg over the head from behind, then claiming that the XO had to take over because the captain got hurt during the storm and couldn’t command.
Be that as it may, yeah, he’s bats. We know it today as PTSD.
Out of his depth, certainly, but the book version didn’t strike me as crazy. Bogart’s performance in the movie tries to establish crazy, though it kinda strikes me more as just sad and pathetic.
Well, are we defining “crazy” as “suffers from a clinically recognizable emotional or psychological disorder,” or “there are ROBOTS in my BRAIN! I need scissors, sixty-one!”?
Both the book and the movie suggest that Queeg had obsessive behaviors that alienated his crew and detracted from ship performance. The final non-act (freezing up during a time of great danger to the ship) is probably the only thing that could be viewed as a mental collapse.
The real-life model for Queeg (the commander of USS Hull, one of the destroyers that sank during Halsey’s Typhoon) was apparently in no way crazy, though sharing some of Queeg’s undesirable traits. From survivors’ reports, he failed to take decisive action to lessen the risk of the ship’s foundering*, but wasn’t “out of it” like Queeg.
*the executive officer of Hull was actually urged by fellow officers to take over the ship when conditions became critical, but refused on the grounds that he’d be nailed for mutiny. The exec was one of those killed when Hull sank.
Wherever the Navy would believe that the immediate replacement of a ship’s captain is necessary. Likely somewhere more towards the latter.
Also, I would have convicted the two under a “lesser included” degree of mutiny if there is such a thing. Does the Navy distinguish a good faith, but mistaken, action under the rules or does it treat all mutinies the same: Maryk and Keith are treated just like a seaman who desires raw power and mutinies without even the pretense of justification?
Further, I think Queeg perjured himself at the court martial. He stated that he didn’t recall the Yellow Stain incident, and testified that he didn’t actually cut the tow line. Then during his rant, he stated that “disloyal officers” caused the dye to be dropped and that defective equipment caused the tow line to be cut. If anything, it shows that he is enough in control of his faculties to lie about his subordinates and about events in question.
Isn’t that pretty much what their defense attorney says to them afterwards when he’s drunk? That even though he got them off, they’re guilty as sin, and that while Queeg is a rotten officer, he’s not crazy.
They’re also, for the record, not actually charged with Mutiny, but instead with Conduct Detrimental to Good Order and Discipline. which is different in that if you’re convicted, they’re probably not going to hang you.
When they get back to port, another shipmate (who’s just been transferred) says he knows what happened to the strawberries (the mess crew ate them, or something) and that Queeg knew, too. When Queeg had everybody searched for a second key to the icebox, that wasn’t “broken windows” policing. it was Queeg vainly trying to relive a success from early in his career.
One of the things that bothers me about the movie is at the end, when Lt. Greenwald berates Maryk, Keefer, and Keith (and himself, somewhat) for bringing down Queeg instead of trying to help him. He’s wrong; they did try to help, and lots of men on the ship did. The helmsman who warned him that they were about to go over their own towline got yelled at. Queeg’s problem, or a part of it anyway, was that he couldn’t accept help. The officers weren’t celebrating Queeg’s downfall, but their own acquittal. I’d have told Greenwald that and thrown a drink in his face.
The courtmartial is overturned, and Willie gets a letter of reprimand, but they don’t promote Queeg. He gets reassigned to a supply depot in Iowa, which effectively ends his naval career.
It’s Othello with McMurray as Iago and Queeg as an incompetent Othello. I didn’t think he was insane at all. He was a loser. All of the incidents were petty except the storm, and then he just was derelict in his duty to try to save the ship and stood there. Again, cowardice.
All are reasonable hypotheses against mental illness; but the point being made by the Defense was that Queeg had mental issues that underlay all of them. On the surface, the tow-line incident points to Queeg’s being a poor commander. He was distracted by his own actions. After the ship ran over the tow line, he did not accept blame. He immediately blamed others, and ‘faulty’ equipment. The beach landing might point to cowardice, but I see it more as PTSD. The strawberries incident shows him exhibiting obsessive behaviour and, when told the truth of what happened, denial of the facts because he could not possibly be wrong. It was testified in the film that Queeg suffered from an inferiority complex. He felt everyone was against him. He felt that he was infallible. He became obsessed with trivial matters, and was obsessed with following the rules to the letter. These traits all came to a head during the typhoon.
Was Queeg ‘crazy’? I don’t think so. But he suffered from mental illness(es) that made him unfit to be a commander.
The yellow stain incident was hardly petty. He was a coward under fire and endangered the landing craft.
The movie clearly displays Queeg as crazy in times of stress. Not just in the main events prior to the trial, but at the end of his testimony itself. Not the same as crazy all the time, but definitely not reliably stable for his position.
My take on the shrinks ruling him sane was this was a put-up job by the Navy to advance their case and everyone knew it was nonsense.
Greenwald’s rebuke was unfounded. Queeg repeatedly rejected advice from his officers. Queeg’s mentality would not have allowed any of them to truly befriend him and gain his confidence.
(The bit about “… the strawberries that’s… that’s where I had them. …” I find is a good all purpose soliloquy to mutter under ones breath when frazzled.)
Perhaps. OTOH, I think this was a ‘moment of clarity’ where he knew he’d screwed up, and realised that he hadn’t been completely rational. He would not have befriended any of his officers, and I don’t think that he would have accepted advice from the group of them. (It would only reinforce his idea that ‘everyone is against me’.) But if Van Johnson had suggested the others leave the room, he might have been able to get through to Queeg.
Greenwalds anger was because Queeg was a professional soldier who had already given his life, so to speak, to our country. All the rest were basically in for the duration and then back to their former glorious lives.
Whatever branch of service you speak of, its tough for a commander to accept praise, criticism or help in public; such as on the bridge. I think Greenwalds point was more that they didn’t approach him privately or encourage each other more to give the Old Man a break.
There’s something to this; Queeg was plainly a man who’d been promoted above his abilities. (Even as a younger man he couldn’t have been a man characterized by abundant emotional health. He’d have been at least somewhat held back by neurotic preoccupation with what others thought of him.)
Still, we haven’t mentioned in this thread the meal at which Queeg flat-out asked the officers to help him–and was met with stony silence. (This is in the movie; I haven’t read the book.)
That refusal to respond to Queeg’s request had to have been on the consciences of the ‘mutineers’–and rightfully so. If they’d unbent enough to say “yes, we will help” that wouldn’t have solved Queeg’s mental problems, but it might have made a substantial difference in the outcome of some of the incidents.
Indeed, they should have had the balls to take the issue up with him officer-to-officer and if that failed brought it up the chain of command when they got the chance. None of them were prepared to do the first, they just did not know how to deal with someone so different from their frames of reference; and they’re about to do the second when Keefer implores them to back off – Keefer is deservedly portrayed as the biggest moral failure, since on top of that he then goes into full-aft CYA mode when he sits in court. He knows (or thinks he does) what needs to be done but he does not want to risk his own hide to do it, seeking to find * someone else* to do it for him, and that’s why he deservers the drink to his face.
This is more so emphasized in the novel and the stage play (as is Greenwald’s Jewishness in contrast to the preppie junior officers). In the novel the incident also results in Meryck winding up in a dead-end command himself.
In the book Queeg is a much younger officer than as portrayed by Bogart, the *Caine, *which is in no way a prestige billet, is his first ship command under fire. The book also portrays both Queeg and Keith as less sympathetic in their personal character, up to that point – the first a petty pointy-haired-boss needing to prove he is, the other an un-selfaware elitist; Keith *then *goes on to grow up under fire.