I’ve been cooped up since catching a cold on Labor Day weekend along the Outer Banks, turning a destination wedding cocktail binge into a long, slow set of afternoons between four walls, south-facing windows, and Mucinex dreams. In these prolonged instances, I find a silver lining causing an expansion of my usual tastes, or at least a forced focus to pass the time. A book can eat away at a day as much as it can beleaguer the minutes if bad—not to mention, my attention span when stir-crazy goes to shit. It’s because of this I find myself going for easy goals, and browsing sites like Criterion for the shortest titles to tackle. The most fruitful are always the post-war thrillers, those 70-some minute B-pictures meant to play before the real draws in the studios’ block-booking. I chose one at random, looking only at the minutes: 75, right in the sweet spot.
Dangerous Crossing (1953) starts simply: a women boards a trans-Atlantic ship with her new husband. They’re briefly separated in the rush onboard, but reunited as he carries her into their suite. He has to make a deposit at the purser, so she goes to wave off the shore on deck before meeting him at the bar. But he never shows up. Moreover, the purser has no transaction from him. When she goes back to her room, the door’s locked! The rest of the lean runtime is spent with Ruth (played brilliantly by Jeanne Crain) trying to convince the crew that she’s not crazy, while her husband is seemingly aboard the ship somewhere, phoning her that they’re in grave danger and to trust no one. It’s a twisty, paranoid whodunit, where the large ship has a small cast of recurring characters, all looking over at Ruth anytime she has a moment of lapsed sanity.
In this way, director Joseph M. Newman turns the ship into a psychological space, unmoored in a cold Atlantic stupor, replete with a foghorn that blares endlessly throughout the night. Wandering the misty decks Ruth is two people at once, and therefore no one. To her partially-disappeared husband, she’s his wife, a woman with a new name and a new identity. To the rest of the passengers and crew, she’s a mystery, an empty slate pretending not to go by her maiden name. A ship’s an ideal setting for this kind of identity play; not just for it being stuck in transit with no way out, nor the way the rock of the ocean lets the camera float like an unstable ghost, not even because of its in-betweenness. What helps these vessels be perfect settings for the identity-less, is their own strange nothingness.
While ill, I’ve also become obsessed with a YouTuber who does reviews of luxury travel offerings, in particular his times aboard the world’s grandest cruise ships. Gone are the days of oceanic voyages for necessity, but very much in are ones where a less-rushed approach to travel can act as a means of vacation in and of itself, but also a wealth signifier. Anywhere from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars can be spent for a couple days' accommodations, usually with cheap-looking Illy espressos and free-flowing Moët. Despite their different destinations or respective corners of the world, all these luxury vessels basically look the same, with enameled walls reflecting intricate LEDs running along meticulously designed industrial carpet. All the restaurants are the same—whether French or Italian or Asian fusion, my YouTuber can always find a steak, medium rare. And more Moët to go with it, always Moët—never a nice red to pair with the meat.
These behemoths keep them entertained with miniature Vegas imitation “shows” of random dancers and many-pieced bands while they order yet another bottle of Moët, or perhaps splurge for the (not included with the price of entry) Dom Pérignon (which is just the cuvée of Moët), all while these shadowy multi-national corporations helming the ships bleed their money, from rich and aspiring middle classes alike. These cruises aren’t so much about arriving at destinations as they are advertisements for lifestyle. Want to break the doldrums of the everyday, to live far away in the lap of luxury? Try Carnival Cruises.
The place where Ruth Bowman (or was it Stanton?) lost her identity is where so many come now to find one, for sale in the bowels of the monoculture’s fleet. It’s all the same over the years, really, Ruth in Dangerous Crossing was looking for a new life herself, but her story leads in as a cautionary tale about discarding one’s identity, and how it can leave you adrift at sea. The world of cruise lines entices this kind of running: on-ship you can have steak for every meal, Moët every hour, the world is yours! So long as it’s the one easily advertised, one which lacks imagination or difference.