Based on a true story. In 1939, 1937 German-Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany are bound for Cuba and asylum. Before reaching Cuba the ship is refused permission to dock and all visas revoked. After being told they could not dock anywhere else, the S.S. St. Louis must turn around and head back to Germany and certain death for its passengers. The captain(Max von Sydow)wants to fake a shipwreck off the coast of England, but another solution arises.

A tremendous all-star cast features:Faye Dunaway, Oskar Werner, Lee Grant, Jose Ferrer, Katherine Ross, Orson Welles, Lynne Frederick, Ben Gazzara, James Mason, Victor Spinetti and Malcolm McDowell. I was most impressed with Ross and Frederick. This film can bring on mild depression, but hope does win out in the end. I liked the finale showing important characters and their fate.

There is such a thing as too much of a good thing--but nobody seemed to realize this when overloading the ship with star names and then giving them little to do. Although based on a true incident, VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED gives the subject a sprawling Hollywood treatment and does what "Ship of Fools" did to Katherine Anne Porter's intriguing novel.

At least MAX VON SYDOW gets to be dynamic as the captain and has the appropriate amount of star footage, but others--like JAMES MASON, JULIE HARRIS and WENDY HILLER--are gone before they can do much.

However, the film's chief fault is the running time--well over two hours without ever building up the tension when the fate of the passengers should be pumping up audience interest in the outcome. The story takes a dramatic turn when the Jewish passengers are denied entry into Cuba and must return to their homeland unless the captain can come up with a better plan.

FAYE DUNAWAY makes a stunning impression and LEE GRANT got an Oscar nomination for her strong supporting role, but others in the large cast come and go in an indifferent manner--except for OSKAR WERNER, who seems to be doing a repeat of his role in "Ship of Fools" as the ship's doctor and is as earnest as ever.

Too bad the storyline couldn't have been trimmed to give the film a tighter length. As it is, it just seems to make its point of man's inhumanity to man without subtlety.

Just misses being a more significant film.

Phenomenal and grossly under-rated film dealing with 937 Jewish people allowed to flee the terror of Nazi Germany in 1939 by going on the St. Louis which was bound for Havana.

The truth be told, the Nazis had no intention of allowing the boat to land successfully. Rather they were going to use this trip to show that no one wanted the Jews and therefore when they would destroy them, no one would care or have the right to care.

The picture has a terrific cast in this ill-fated adventure.

For a second time, Oskar Werner, so memorable as the Dr. Willie in "Ship of Fools," plays another doctor, but this time a Jewish one. Along with his wife,Faye Dunaway, they are passengers. Of course, it's hard to fathom Miss Dunaway as Jewish.

Sam Wanamaker and Lee Grant are a couple fleeing from persecution by the Gestapo. Grant's acting in a pivotal scene by cutting off her hair was Oscar made,and while she received the only acting nomination in the film, she lost to Beatrice Straight's "Network." It should also be noted that Straight's time on the screen was even more brief that Grant. Grant's brief performance was probably her best, even better than in "Shampoo," the film that gave her the supporting Oscar the year before.

While the boat is drifting along, we see the players in Cuba either desperately trying to help the unfortunate Jews or corrupt officials in the Cuban government who played along with the Nazis for their own selfish economic interests.

Wendy Hiller and Luther Adler have their moments as an elderly Jewish couple. It's also hard to conceive Hiller as Jewish until she rips her garment in the traditional way when a death occurs. Hard to envision a Jewish funeral at sea with the Nazi swastika swerving on the ship.

Ben Gazzara is brilliant as a Jewish operative desperately trying to free the passengers. He goes all over the world and uncovers nothing more than frustration. Only a last minute reprieve saved the passengers from returning to Germany. Many of those however wound up perishing in countries invaded by Germany during the war.

This brilliant film serves as a reminder to the moral decay of the 1930s and that nations did little to stop the Nazi menace from the killing of 6 million innocents.

It is amazing that this film does not rank up there with "Ship of Fools," or even "Schindler's List."