The Caine Mutiny: Difference between revisions

* [[0% Approval Rating]]: Queeg achieves this in record time.

* [[Adaptation Distillation]]: Most notably cutting down the [[Token Romance]] to only a scene or two, and skipping past nearly everything leading up to Willie coming aboard the Caine.

* [[Amazingly Embarrassing Parent]]: When Keith arrives at the Academy, his mother is so desperate to [[Overprotective Mom|protect him]] from the navy that she has to be forcibly kept from [[Naked People Are Funny|rushing into the Medical Inspection]] room to rescue her [[Doting Parent|dear little boy.]]

* [[Artistic License Ships]]: Averted in the adaptations, which replaced the novel's four-piper destroyer-minesweeper conversion with a Gleaves-class conversion.

* [[Author Avatar]]: An unusual case, verging on [[Anti-Sue]]. Tom Keefer closely resembles Herman Wouk in many respects - and is also cowardly, conniving, lazy, and disliked by the rest of the crew (except Keith). Greenwald even goes so far as to call him {{spoiler|"the real villain of the ''Caine'' mutiny."}}

* [[Bluffing the Murderer]]: Or rather, bluff [[The Neidermeyer]]: the defense goads Queeg into a [[Villainous Breakdown]] on the stand, thus proving his removal from command was justified.

* [[Captain Queeg]]: [[Trope Namer]] for [[The Neidermeyer]] in [[Real Life]], hence the expression ''"Queeg-like"''.

** It's Queeg's cowardice in battle that ultimately turns the men of the ''Caine'' against him.

*** In the novel, at least, it's implied Queeg's cowardice is more due to having [[Shell-Shocked Veteran|been on active duty for too damn long]], since by all accounts he served with distinction in the Atlantic escorting convoys.

* [[Doorstopper]]: The novel itself is a robust 500 or so pages depending on what edition you're looking at. And in-story, Tom Keefer's novel is longer than ''[[War and Peace]]''!

* [[Engineered Public Confession]]: Queeg is a victim of this.

* [[Foregone Conclusion]]: The title of the work.

* [[Glamorous Wartime Singer]]: May Wynn.

* [[Iconic Characters]]: Captain Queeg.

* [[Jerkass]]: Lieutenant Thomas Keefer.

{{quote|'''Keith:''' Well, he's certainly Navy.

'''Keefer:''' Yeah. So was [[Mutiny on the Bounty|Captain Bligh]].}}

* [[Sibling Yin-Yang]]: Roland Keefer, Tom Keefer's brother, is rough, crude, [[Book Dumb]], but infinitely more honorable; pulling a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] to save the ship he was on.

* [[Stage Names]]: May's real name in the book is Marie Minotti. Donna Lee Hickey, the actress who played her in the film also used this stage name.

* [[Supporting Protagonist]]: Arguably Keith, who doesn't really advance the plot much until after the titular mutiny and the court-marshal is finished. Maryk comes across more as [[The Hero]] of the story, and Keefer, Greenwald and Queeg also make for much more interesting characters. Even his role in the mutiny feels shoe-horned in; he was the Officer On Deck at the time and supported Maryk's decision, something most of the other officers ([[Dirty Coward|aside from Keefer]], perhaps.) [[0% Approval Rating|would likely have done]].

* [[Token Romance]]: Keith's relationship with May really doesn't advance the plot ''at all'', and the chapters focusing on it arguably make up some of the most unbearable chapters of the book. It gets worse when Keith is spending half his time in those scenes trying to dump her.

 

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[[Category:Historical Fiction Literature]]

[[Category:Theatrical Productions]]

[[Category:Sea Stories]]

[[Category:Films of the 1950s]]

[[Category:Literature]]

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