Notable for Humphrey Bogart's performance as the paranoiac Captain Queeg and for Dmytryk's solid direction--especially in the taut courtroom scene--The Caine Mutiny is also an excellent example of Hollywood taking on a forbidden target--the U.S. Navy--but not quite doing it in. In order to obtain permission to photograph its vessels, producer Stanley Kramer had to convince the U.S. Navy that what looked like a criticism of the military--an exposé of the inhuman tension under which it places its men, and the weird results thereof, i.e. Queeg--was not anti-Navy at all. Gordon Gow writes (in “Hollywood in the Fifties”): “...the balance was slightly redressed by the final denunciation of a very ambiguous villain, Lt. Keefer (Fred MacMurray, giving an excellent performance). Keefer's intellectual prowess was coupled with an emotional distaste for service life, verging upon neurosis...(or a) left-wing threat to democracy.... Queeg, in fact, was a pathetic victim of combat fatigue....” Van Johnson and Jose Ferrer are also featured.