Voyage of the Damned

Based on historic events, this dramatic film concerns the 1939 voyage of the German-flagged MS St. Louis, which departed from Hamburg carrying 937 Jews from Germany, bound for Havana, Cuba. The passengers, having seen and suffered rising anti-Semitism in Germany, realized this might be their only chance to escape. The film details the emotional journey of the passengers, who gradually become aware that their passage was planned as an exercise in Nazi propaganda, and that Germany had never intended that they disembark in Cuba. Rather, they were to be set up as pariahs, to set an example before the world. As a Nazi official states in the film, when the whole world has refused to accept the Jews as refugees, no country can blame Germany for their fate.

The Cuban government refuses entry to the passengers while the ship was on its way, and next the liner heads to the United States. As it waits off the Florida coast, the passengers learn that the United States also has rejected them, as Canada subsequently does; leaving the captain no choice but to return to Europe. The captain tells a confidante that he has received a letter signed by 200 passengers saying they will join hands and jump into the sea rather than return to Germany. He states his intention to run the liner aground on a reef off the southern coast of England, to allow the passengers to be rescued and reach safety there.

Shortly before the film's end, it is revealed that the governments of Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom have each agreed to accept a share of the passengers as refugees. As they cheer and clap at the news, footnotes disclose the fates of some of the main characters, suggesting that more than 600 of the 937 passengers, who did not resettle in Britain but in the other European nations, ultimately were deported and were murdered in Nazi concentration camps.

Faye Dunaway, Oskar Werner and director Stuart Rosenberg on location in Barcelona

The book was published in 1974. The Los Angeles Times called it "a human document of rare and discerning power".[6] The book was a best seller, and the authors earned an estimated £500,000 from it.[7]

Rights to the book were acquired in 1974.[2] It was originally envisioned as an ABC Movie of the Week but its budget of $7.3 million was too expensive.[2]

The film was the first feature of Associated General Films.[2]

Dunaway was paid $500,000 plus a percentage of the profits.[8]

The movie was filmed on board the chartered Italian ocean liner Irpinia,[9] which was fitted with two false funnels in order to resemble St. Louis.[10][1] It was also shot on location in Barcelona, Spain (standing in for Cuba),[1][2] St. Pancras Chambers in London, and at the EMI Elstree Studios in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire.[11]

The true death toll is uncertain. The 1974 book that was the basis of the film estimated a much lower number of deaths.[5] By using statistical analysis of survival rates for Jews in various Nazi-occupied countries, Thomas and Morgan-Witts estimated the fate of the 621 St. Louis passengers who were not given refuge in Cuba or the United Kingdom (one died during the voyage): 44 (20%) of the 224 refugees that settled in France likely were murdered in the Holocaust, 62 (29%) Holocaust murders amongst the 214 that reached Belgium, and 121 (67%) Holocaust murders amongst the 181 that settled in the Netherlands, for a total of 227 (37%) of the refugees that came under occupation were likely murdered by the Nazis.[12][13] In 1998, Scott Miller and Sarah Ogilvie of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum traced the survivors from the voyage, concluding that a total of 254 refugees or 40.9 percent were murdered by the Nazis.[14]

The film opened on 22 December 1976 in four theatres in New York and Los Angeles.[2]

The complete, uncut version of the film was 182 minutes long. It was released only once, on the Magnetic Video label in 1980. Apparently this is an earlier version of the film, which was created by editor Roger Cherrill according to a note in the end credits

The film score was composed, arranged and conducted by Lalo Schifrin and the soundtrack album was released on the Entr'Acte label in 1977.[19]

• Jewish refugees
• Ship of Fools

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Voyage of the Damned.

• Voyage of the Damned at the American Film Institute Catalog
• Voyage of the Damned at IMDb
• Voyage of the Damned at Rotten Tomatoes
• Voyage of the Damned at the TCM Movie Database