All the Brothers Were Valiant (1953)

the audience applauded

Such a frustrating disappointment

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Another commenter mentioned the un-likelihood of a whaler captain taking his bride on a projected three-year voyage.In fact, sailors, a generally superstitious lot, often found women on a ship to be a jinx.Then, too, today the very act of whaling is so P non-C that a lot of people will object to that aspect, rather than concentrating on the fact the story is set at a time no one saw a particular problem with killing the sea-going mammals for their oil.Robert Taylor gives one of his best performances; Stewart Granger comes across very well.Ann Blyth has some good scenes, and some bad ones, but she does them all well.One really attractive aspect of "All the Brothers" is a superb supporting cast. Peter Whitney, for example, has one of his best roles in a very long career. He too often plays a dumb or bumbling character, but here he is a strong person in a pivotal position.Leo Gordon has a smaller role, but he stands out, as does John Lupton, in a larger part.Frank DeKova (whom I met on the set of "Johnny Firecloud") was a superb character actor but who was too often relegated to small roles. He could have been a bigger star, with his talent, but he was recognized by his peers, anyway.The great Glenn Strange and the great John Doucette were aboard, adding their enormous talents and, as so often true in Hollywood, not getting screen credit.Come to think of it, this movie is worth watching just for the great cast. But be prepared to suspend your disbelief, and don't look at the blue eyes of the "native girl."

This film has quite a good story by Ben Ames Williams, which was competently brought to the screen. Robert Taylor is the "good" brother and Stewart Granger the "bad" one. Ann Blyth is the woman who marries Taylor thinking Granger is dead. Three years later Granger and Taylor would star in "The Last Hunt" with a reversal of roles: Granger as the "good" guy and Taylor the "bad". There are two aspects of this film which create a strong impression:1)the destructive relationship between the brothers, which started in childhood with Granger always taking for himself Taylor's toys. Now Granger wants to take away Taylor's ship and also his wife. 2)How Granger is able to seduce Ann Blyth by making her think her husband is a coward. Blyth is a bit too "angelical" for her role, when you see the ship you have the feeling you are seeing a miniature on MGM's tank, but both Granger and Taylor are excellent. Great entertainment.

Robert Taylor and Stewart Granger are the brothers Shore, Taylor good, Granger bad. Stewart Granger has been lost at sea, presumed dead. Taylor marries Granger's sweetheart, Ann Blyth, and takes her with him on the next whaling voyage. Mind you these voyages last two to three years sometimes.Well call me an oldfashioned romantic, but it seems like you marry the girl do the honeymoon thing for a month or so and THEN go to sea. Granted that Ann is a New Bedford girl and has been brought up in that culture, but yeeeeesh.Of course Granger's found on the voyage and with Blyth along and Granger wanting to go after some pearls he left behind in the lagoon of a very unfriendly native island, this causes all kinds of complications. If you're interested, buy or rent the video.Robert Taylor was a most agreeable employee at MGM known for accepting everything they offered him in parts. Stewart Granger also accepted a lot of parts he didn't want to, but that was because wife Jean Simmons could fight for roles she wanted. Either way both these guys got took on this one.This was also the final film of Lewis Stone who may have appeared in more MGM films than anyone else. Maybe Lionel Barrymore is the only other player that could contest that. He should have gone out on something better.

We are in 1857... The 'Nathan Ross' is sailing from New Bedford, Massachusetts with Joel Shore (Robert Taylor) as her captain for three years whaling trip...Captain Joel Shore is glad and proud for marrying Priscilla (Ann Blyth), a lovely shining little girl who was in love with his brother, Mark (Stewart Granger), believed dead!Mark, not proved dead, is not a man to fall easy... He left his ship full of fever and rum... A little native girl (Bette St. John), with the face of an angel, looked after him and cured his fever...In a lagoon on an unchartered island over an oyster bed that had never been touched since the world began, Fetcher (James Whitmore) and Quint (Kurt Kasznar) offer Mark a line of a fortune of beautiful black pearls 'some like full moons and some like tears'...Captain Mark Shore appears like a ghost on the 'Nathan Ross' and tells his brother Joel that 'half a million worth of pearls were at 12 feet of water, just waiting to pick up.'Captain Joel, knowing that the pearls could bring blood on the ship, refuses to turn back the ship to get the fortune that the native girl dropped in the shallow water while fleeing, with Mark, the furious frantic natives...Mark, forced by his ambition to return for the pearls at any cost, becomes the main instigator of a mutiny on the Nathan Ross, starting a revolt against his own brother...Ann Blyth, whose beauty 'blushes all the whales,' increases the rivalry between the two brothers on the whaling ship...A remake of a silent melodrama made in 1923, "All The Brothers Were Valiant" has all the exciting moments of a great adventure film: a storm braving the fury of Cape Horn, a deadly combat with a monster of the deep, cut-throat fight between whaling sailors seeking fortune, and and exotic romance in the arms of an island sweetheart...