Herman Wouk's book The Caine Mutiny was the first best-selling book that producer Stanley Kramer ever adapted for the screen. The novel had already become the basis for a nationally successful stage play, so the story was familiar to many when the film premiered in June 1954 at New York's Capitol Theatre. The Caine Mutiny was not the first film to cast a critical eye on the military. In fact, From Here to Eternity, released the year before, covered certain aspects of the armed forces under a negative light. But The Caine Mutiny was one of the most powerful tales of a branch of the U.S. military fostering and promoting a commanding officer who was clearly mentally unbalanced. Instead of presenting a military officer who is an efficient cog in the military machine, Humphrey Bogart's Captain Queeg is so unhinged, that his mental breakdown threatens the entire safety of the crew and ship that he commands.

by Scott McGee