Andrew and Virginia Stone, the husband and wife creative team who conceived and made the film The Last Voyage had the good fortune to use a real ocean liner in their film. No miniatures for their special effects which got The Last Voyage its only recognition from the Academy.

That harbinger of bad luck named Murphy must have been on the passenger roster of the S.S. Claridon which was captained by George Sanders because the law he espoused was operating full tilt on this trans-Pacific voyage. It all starts with fire in the boiler room which leads to a series of bad luck and bad decisions.

The story of the doomed ship Claridon proceeds on a double track. There is the story of the ship sinking itself and particularly the clash with Captain Sanders and Engineer Edmond O'Brien. The second is the personal story of Robert Stack who with wife Dorothy Malone and their little girl Tammy Marihugh are traveling to Tokyo for Stack's job. When an explosion occurs both Malone and the little girl are trapped in the cabin. With all that's going on around Stack finds precious little help for his family's personal plight.

The Last Voyage is a tightly paced drama which does not waste a second of film frame in the telling of its story. Best in the film I think is Malone who is just brilliant as the woman coming to grips with an impending doom. Honorable mention should also go to Woody Strode who plays a ship's stoker who renders needed assistance to Stack in his hour of trial.

The Last Voyage was nominated for Best Special Effects, but lost to the only other film nominated that year, George Pal's The Time Machine. I'd hated to have been an Academy voter that year and have to make that choice.

Five years earlier the Andrea Doria disaster had happened only minutes from New York harbor. The stories from that sea disaster were fresh in the public mind, let alone the story of the Titanic.

Fifty years after it was released The Last Voyage holds up well and even the technology changes haven't dated this film one bit. This one is highly recommended.

I am a retired U.S. Navy Captain, an Engineering Duty Officer who ran shipyards for many years and was Chief Engineer of an aircraft carrier. Ships and what make them tick were my thing for 30 years. I trained for the disaster depicted in "The Last Voyage" for many years and fortunately never encountered it.

I can tell you with some expertise that this is the most realistic film of this genre ever made. I was astounded watching it. They actually got most of the terminology and sequence of events correct. Edmund O'Brien made a convincing Engineer. It could almost be a training film for: > attempting to manually trip a boiler safety valve > shoring up a bulkhead in an adjacent flooded space etc.

If you want to see what something like this might be like, watch this film. I also found the ending pretty suspenseful - I wasn't quite sure who was going to live, and who was going to die.

After a fire in the engine room, "Claridon" luxury liner captain George Sanders (as Robert Adams), in true disaster movie form, orders engineer Edmond O'Brien (as Walsh) his crew to make repairs without telling on-board passengers. But, when the ship suffers a subsequent explosion in its boiler room, everyone knows something has gone horribly wrong. Job-transferring from Sacramento to Tokyo, Robert Stack (as Cliff Henderson) finds beautiful blonde wife Dorothy Malone (as Laurie) pinned under some debris. Moreover, red-haired daughter Tammy Marihugh (as Jill) is left cowering on the side of their cabin, which has lost its floor.

Watching Mr. Stack rescue his daughter is a highlight, even though you know how this will play out; rest assured, filmmakers weren't in the habit of killing off cute little girls in the beginning of 1960 movies. From then on, the story focuses on Stack's efforts to save Ms. Malone while passengers and crew scramble for survival. Stack and Malone must consider the possibility that she - still pinned under a steel beam - should go down with the ship. One of the first crew people willing to help the couple is presciently cast Woody Strode (as Hank Lawson). Writer/director Andrew L. Stone and his wife Virginia make "The Last Voyage" an exciting trip.

******** The Last Voyage (2/19/60) Andrew L. Stone ~ Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, Woody Strode, Edmond O'Brien