Hobart Bosworth sails on… The Blood Ship (1927)

 

Only my silent friend in the corner declined to take part in the merrymaking… The bludgeon-like wit of the house very carefully passed him by. For he was so plainly a desperate man.

 

The Blood Ship is based on the 1922 novel of the same name by Norman Springer and is very much tailor-made for a Hobart Bosworth blood bath. The star of the ferocious Behind the Door had earned his sea legs at a young age after apparently running away from home at 12 then working as a cabin boy on a sea clipper for three years before work on an artic whaler. The son of a Civil War naval captain, he clearly heard the call of the sea but he became involved in theatre aged 18 when invited to work as a stage manager helping to produce backdrops, work he hoped would enable him to study art. Quite the shift for a man who, in Norman Springer’s words, looked like the sort of “hard case” you would find working the toughest seas.

 

Bosworth began to act, funded by the odd stint in coal mining, and just as he was establishing himself in New York he was stricken with tuberculosis which not only weakened him but also affected his voice. Unable to project on stage he found new opportunities with silent film in the 1900s and also the ability to live in warmer climates. He credited the industry with saving his life and became one of the period’s most forceful performers who was also producer, script writer and director. A man of many talents.

 

The Blood Ship was one some two dozen nautical films he made and it gives him full rein to bring his weather worn features and remarkable sensitivity to the role of a man robbed of life and liberty who is seeking revenge for more than he knows… and he ramps up the righteous anger with emphatic force as the full extent of his betrayal is revealed. The film has recently been restored following the discovery in 2007 of its long-lost final reel and it looks almost freshly minted in the new Sony Blu-ray which comes with a new score from the redoubtable Donald Sosin.

 

Directed by George B. Seitz it concerns The Golden Bough, a trading ship run by the brutal Captain Angus “Black Yankee” Swope (Walter James) a man who in the late 1880s was “cursed from Liverpool to Singapore as the cruellest master that sailed the Seven Seas…”. We find him ordering the lashing of a would-be mutineer aided by his equally unforgiving First Mate, Fitz (Fred Kohler who would play so many henchmen – he had a face for cruelty). The other crew seethe silently and only the Captain’s daughter Mary (Jacqueline Logan) tries to help the poor man.

 

Walter James

“They cleaned me - a year’s pay - the Swede and his wimmin!”

 

Swope is a cynical abuser and he knows that treating his crew mean will keep them in line and that they’ll escape the first chance they get without his having to pay them and as the ship’s hull touches the dock they’re all off. Meanwhile at Knitting Swede’s Lodging and Beds, more services are being supplied than advertised as one sailor is ejected after getting caught up in the titular Swede’s web of gambling, sex work and booze.

 

James Bradbury Sr. plays the Swede who does actually sit at his bar and knit in a surprise development although the knitted hat he wears doesn’t speak to any great advancement in wool craft. He sist and smile eyeing his clientele up and assessing all with a smile including the Reverend Richard Deaken (Chappell Dossett) who steps over the threshold to remonstrate about the effect of his wicked ways. After his rebuttal, the Swede says to his bouncer (Syd Crossley) that perhaps the preacher could do with a sea voyage…

 

John Shreve’s my name – able seaman – and I don’t think I like you or your runner!

 

Richard Arlen and Hobart Bosworth

A young man smirks at the bar and introduces himself as John Shreve (Richard Arlen) to the Swede and his man, expressing his distaste for the racket they are unquestionably running and going off to sit next to a moody man fulling his pipe in the corner of the room. The Swede sends one of his girls to distract John who then gets in a fight with the bouncer and, having trounced him is saved by the moody man who turns out to be Jim Newman (Hobart Bosworth). Both men volunteer for Swope’s ship though, John because he wants to protect Mary and the latter for reasons all of his own.

 

Soon they’re taken on board with many who most definitely did not volunteer including the Reverend, who thinks this must be some kind of mistake and couldn’t they drop him back on shore, and the cockney bouncer now surplus to the Swede’s requirements having lost his barroom brawl and his reputation. Jim avoids Swope’s attentions whilst the rest of the men soon learn that his reputation is entirely founded in reality.

 

Soon Jim confronts Swope and we learn the shocking secret of their relationship whilst a young cabin boy is almost kicked to death by Swope and the tensions mount… This being a Hobart Bosworth production you just know there will be a hate-filled battle at the end of the film and few actors could match his convincing ferocity and righteous indignation. There is good support from Arlen and all including Blue Washington who is gifted with a dramatic role that doesn’t entirely rely on the usual racial stereotypes of this era – there were always creators who looked to progress and not perpetuate. Call them “woke” perhaps…?

 

Jacqueline Logan

It's a tense and  visceral ride and as the novelist, mage and former comic-book author Alan Moore once remarked, superheroes are essentially revenge fantasies for the impotent, and you can say the same for film stars in stories like this.

 

Talking of which, there is now a new Blu-ray combining Irvin Willat’s Bosworth adventures, Behind the Door (1919) and Below the Surface (1920) from Flicker Alley, both restored by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival and with new scores from Stephen Horne. Personally, I can never get enough Hobart and Horne and have already snapped this one up, you can order direct from Flicker Alley for the further adventures of Bosworth on Boats!

 

The Blood Ship Blu-ray can be ordered from eBay and the usual US retailers, but watch out for the sales tax!