Botany Bay (1952) User Reviews

Too bad it wasn't shot in Australia

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 20 September 2006]

Other reviewers of Botany Bay have complained about the lack of location shooting in this film. Two very good reasons for Paramount's decision to opt for the back lot. First it was expensive to go to Australia for an American company. I'm sure that there are Aussie films that deal with this particular portion of their history far better than Botany Bay.

But secondly this was the last picture on Alan Ladd's Paramount contract. He and his agent/wife Sue Carol made a decision to move to Warner Brothers so Paramount was getting rid of the last film on his contract. They were not about to spend big bucks promoting a star who wasn't going to be bringing in more box office for them.

Having said that Botany Bay is not a bad film and it certainly did give American audiences some idea about the founding of Australia as a haven for convict prisoners. One of our original 13 colonies, Georgia, was founded for just that reason also, but here a whole continent was devoted to same.

Ladd plays an American accused of being a highwayman in Great Britain. The fact he was an American probably played some role in his conviction so shortly after the American Revolution in the 1780s. He's saved from the hangman by this offer of pardon to go to Australia and he travels on a crowded ship, skippered by a sadistic captain.

Who is played by James Mason who basically steals the film. The novel on which this is based is by Nordhoff and Hall who wrote Mutiny on the Bounty and there's a whole lot of Captain Bligh in Mason. We've also got Patricia Medina, a saucy wench who likes Ladd, but flirts with Mason for her survival on the ship in some comfort.

Not a bad film, but not the greatest of send offs for one of Paramount's biggest stars.

BOTANY BAY (John Farrow, 1953) **1/2

[Bunuel1976 · 6/10 · 24 December 2008]

I recall catching this as a kid on local TV, a screening which, most probably, came about via the personal print of the film-buff sexton who calls over a number of friends, me included, from time to time to his private home theater in order to share in his vast movie collection on 16 and 35mm. Based on a book by the authors behind "Mutiny On The Bounty", this follows a very similar path – with a ship's crew at the mercy of a martinet captain (James Mason basically returning to the kind of role which had made him a star in his homeland); his opposition is led by medical student(!) Alan Ladd (typically dour) who's actually one of the many prisoners bound for exile in far-away Australia, among whom is also leading lady Patricia Medina (predictably, over the course of the film, she also becomes a personal object of contention between the two male stars).

Despite such imposing credentials as scriptwriter Jonathan Latimer and director Farrow, the film perhaps fails to rise consistently above the routine – not even with such unusual plot points as Mason's adoption of a banned form of punishment (keel-hauling); during the latter stages, then – as the company sets ashore, and we also get to meet Governor Sir Cedric Hardwicke – the film tends to lose the initial momentum of the ship-board brutality. Suffice it to say that the film I watched just prior to it, CARTOUCHE (1962; with Jean-Paul Belmondo and Claudia Cardinale) was over 20 minutes longer but seemed to me to have moved at a much quicker pace! Even so, BOTANY BAY remains a good example of the colorful entertainment they used to churn out in the old days, given an extra edge by Mason's compelling portrayal (which, if anything, suggests that he'd have made a marvelous Captain Bligh).

For the record, John Farrow directed Alan Ladd for the fifth and last time here after what looks like a run of mostly unassuming action potboilers: CHINA (1943), the equally seafaring TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST (1946), CALCUTTA (1947) and BEYOND GLORY (1948). It must be said here that, locally, Alan Ladd was a very popular film star with my father's generation and, apart from the immortal Western SHANE (1953), it's a pity that he seems to have been undeservedly forgotten with the passage of time.

P.S. Useless bit of trivia: I have just come across an allegedly uncut copy of the controversial WAKE IN FRIGHT aka OUTBACK (1971; with Donald Pleasence) taken from an Australian TV screening and, as the credits rolled, an announcer informs the audience to tune in at the same time tomorrow for a screening of…BOTANY BAY!!

A gift of a role for James Mason

[Maverick1962 · 7/10 · 10 July 2020]

Here's another film about transporting prisoners to Australia in the 18th century. I can't comment on the accuracy of the history here but this is a subject that often gets used as the backdrop to films or TV series. It does allow scope for adventure, a bit of swashbuckling, usually a dose of brutality and often a pretty heroine. All are present here with Alan Ladd as a doctor wrongly accused of highway robbery, the beautiful and perhaps underrated Patricia Medina as the heroine, Sir Cedric Hardwicke as the governor at Botany Bay and best of all, James Mason as the brutal sea captain giving one of his most charismatic performances ever that I've seen and that's many. Mason simply steals every scene he's in and you can't take your eyes off him and he certainly gives. Charles Laughton a run for the money in Mutiny On The Bounty. I understand it was all shot on backlots at Paramount which can give a claustraphobic feel when it needed opening up with location work but even so passes a couple of hours fairly successfully.

Still haunted by Mason's villainy!

[gregcouture · 16 July 2003]

As of this date, the only other IMDb comment on this title is one with which I can agree. I saw it during its neighborhood run in the year of its release and recall that it did, indeed, look like the budget must have been rather minuscule. But James Mason's performance is one that I can still remember as entirely disturbing for a young moviegoer not yet in his teens. What an actor! He made this film, which Paramount obviously treated as just a programmer, quite an experience. If remade today, I suppose we'd have Mel Gibson in the Alan Ladd role and, perhaps, Geoffrey Rush trying to imitate Mason's indelible portrait, plus some authentic Australian locations. But once was enough, for it was quite a grim experience, and the brutality that would probably be gruesomely depicted today would be more than I'd pay to see!

good film

[marktayloruk · 7/10 · 16 May 2020]

Must say Ladd looked a bit old to be a student. I also think Patricia Medina should have slept with Mason - after all, an eight - month voyage...

Patricia Medina is hot !

[Matthew_Capitano · 7/10 · 1 December 2011]

Ship Captain James Mason smartly makes beautiful prisoner Patricia Medina his lady while the rest of the cargo of convicts shivers in damp cells.

Alan Ladd is a doctor who supposedly has a pardon from this wretched existence, but Mason will have none of that as he gets his vessel under-way while concomitantly questioning the verisimilitude of the various scumbags on board who claim to be "innocent". Fun escapist film with the fine acting of James Mason and pretty Patricia Medina keeping this viewer from dozing off on the couch... at least during the first time I saw it. Now, I use the movie as a sleep aid, though it's still one of my favorite adventure films. I'd be just like Captain Mason.... Captain Capitano (me) would let gorgeous Patricia move into my cabin.... including my sleeping quarters.

Excellent actor Skelton Knaggs makes an uncredited appearance during the first few minutes of the film as a convict reading a posting that lists the names of fellow convicts scheduled to be shipped to Botany Bay.

Poor man's Mutiny On the Bounty

[searchanddestroy-1 · 7/10 · 17 October 2021]

This was a speciality of Paramount Pictures to make adventures yarns: see for instance Edward Ludwig or even Lewis R Foster's colourful flicks. This one makes no exception, it remains in the house tradition and style, atmosphere and efficiency too. Alan Ladd does his job with not great conviction but that's OK. Mason is good as the evil captain, though not being Chuck Laughton in the 1936 version. Good movie for adventures features moviegoers.

Freedom for prisoners with a price.

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 18 November 2023]

Basically telling these accused criminals that they can avoid being behind bars, but sent far, far away so they'll be under someone else's watch, a group of condemned British men and women are shipped to the unsettled territory of 18th century Australia. Most of the film takes place aboard a ship known as the Charlotte, with evil captain James Mason treating the passengers as if they were still behind bars, and making Alan Ladd his main target.

The area of Australia they settle in is basically a penal colony so they're at the mercy of the elements which includes friendly koala and attacks by native aboriginals. For a brief moment, Mason and his team, governor Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Ladd and his fellow prisoners (wearing uniforms that are basically pajamas) must band together to survive, but it's apparent that Mason and Ladd are at war with each other, and no matter what happens with the natives, their hatred will only create more power struggle.

Among the female prisoners is Patricia Medina who's instantly at odds with the other women, including a hawk beaked old bat who obviously hates her youth and beauty. A bearded Jonathan Harris ("Lost in Space's" Dr. Smith) and Murray Matheson co-star. The film is interesting for its subject matter, but being studio bound and not filmed on location rather stale looking and un-cinematic. Mason walks away with acting honors, a fantastic villain whose hypocrisy has him abusing the prisoners while holding a religious ceremony.

Outdoor adventures don't belong inside a studio

[dinky-4 · 5/10 · 26 April 1999]

A good premise: a gaggle of British convicts, male and female, are shipped to the new penal colony in Australia, circa 1780s. But while this story calls for great seascapes, Paramount gives us ship-in-a-soundstage scenes which are cramped and unconvincing. Even the later sequences in Australia have a "backlot" quality to them. Note the dark, sexually-ambiguous undertones in the performance of ship's captain, James Mason. Alan Ladd, who, like Burt Lancaster and Mel Gibson, liked to suffer in his movies, here gets to be flogged and later keelhauled. His flogging in "Two Years Before the Mast" is much more vivid but his keelhauling in "Botany Bay" marks the only time a Hollywood leading man has suffered this particular kind of punishment. Curiously, despite his penchant for "beefcake" scenes, Ladd remains fully clothed for this sequence. Perhaps the fear was that audiences would understandably expect a shirtless Ladd to suffer many cuts and abrasions on his bare torso while being scraped under the ship's keel, and Paramount didn't want to see its handsome leading man forced to look, even temporarily, disfigured or damaged.

Facile Assembly Work

[richardchatten · 5/10 · 16 May 2020]

Alan Ladd completed his Paramount contract with this blighted version of Nordhoff & Hall's 1941 novel which (since plague features in the plot) ironically had to be rescheduled around a nasty bout of 'flu that confined him to bed for several days during production.

Despite an interesting cast (with James Mason absolutely loathsome as the brutal captain, who later recalled he found director John Farrow's own cruelty on the set gave him "some useful hints"), rich Technicolor photography by veteran cameraman John Seitz, frequent floggings, a keelhauling and other unpleasantness, the studio-bound end result is surprisingly garrulous and uninvolving.

A ship of hoodlums exiled to penal colonies in Australia with James Mason in charge and Alan Ladd an intrepid innocent

[clanciai · 8/10 · 3 September 2018]

This is a great novel, and the film, alas, does not quite live up to it. All the actors are quite all right, James Mason as a paragon of inhumanity at his most loathsome superiority - you wait for him to get murdered all through the film, and Alan Ladd, reliable as always in his irrepressible heroic obstinacy, Cedric Hardwicke as the pragmatic Australian governor, and Patricia Medina as the indispensible female element of some counterpoise to all the beastly cruelty. Franz Waxman's music helps a lot, and there is nothing really to complain about in this film on a great and interesting story indeed, except that it could have been made so much better, as the novel is well on par with "Mutiny on the Bounty".

Pretty ordinary...

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 3 February 2011]

This is a rather ordinary and amazingly listless film considering the subject matter. You'd think that a movie about prisoners being transported to the British colony in New South Wales (Australia) would be pretty gritty and exciting. Well, despite the topic, the film just seemed very low-key and low-energy---with little to distinguish it from any other film. Ironically, this film came out the same year as "Shane"--a much better film that also starred Alan Ladd.

Ladd stars as an American who gets into trouble in England and is being transported to the penal colony. However, he gets word that he's received a pardon and things look wonderful. The problem, however, is that the ship's Captain (James Mason) is a real wiener and won't hear of waiting or getting verification of the pardon and simply sails with Ladd and the rest of them! Nice guy, huh? Throughout the cruise, Mason is a real taskmaster and jerk--though this sort of rigidity was not that unusual for a British naval officer of this period. Lots of things happen aboard, including an attempted escape, but I won't go into the details in case you wish to see the film. However, by the time they arrive in the colony, Mason is determined to take Ladd back to Old Blighty for a trial...and hanging. What is Ladd to do?! Will our stalwart hero manage to somehow survive his wretched ordeal?

As I said, this was very low energy. Ladd was capable of some nice performances and I like him as an actor, but he was also capable of listless performances as well. This one was one of his less distinguished and less interesting ones--and would have benefited from him injecting a bit more machismo and energy into this acting. A bit predictable, as well, by the way.

The Sort of Historical Drama which Gets Historical Dramas a Bad Name

[JamesHitchcock · 4/10 · 23 December 2020]

After American independence the British government could no longer send convicted criminals to the Thirteen Colonies, so decided to send them to Australia instead. (For some reason Canada was not considered). "Botany Bay" is a highly fictionalised account of the voyage of the First Fleet which brought the first convicts to Australia. In reality the fleet consisted of eleven ships, but the film deals with only one of these, the "Charlotte", and gives the misleading impression that the ship sailed on its own. Some of the characters, such as Governor Philip and Captain Gilbert of the "Charlotte", were real historical figures, but others are fictitious. Gilbert's Christian name was Thomas, but here for some reason he is renamed "Paul", possibly in order to distance him from the real Thomas Gilbert, who does not appear to have been the villain depicted here.

This was an American-made film, so there has to be an American hero, Hugh Tallant, a medical student convicted of robbery. He claims that the money he took was rightfully his and was being withheld from him by a corrupt lawyer, a claim which seems to have been accepted by the authorities, because he has been pardoned by King George III. The messenger bearing the pardon, however, does not arrive at the docks until after the ship has sailed. Tallant has already read of his pardon in a newspaper and begs Gilbert to await the arrival of the messenger, but the captain refuses. There also has to be a beautiful heroine, in this case Sally Munroe, a young actress convicted of stealing a necklace. Despite the rigours of a long voyage lasting several months, Sally is just as beautiful, with the same immaculate hair and make-up, when the ship arrives in Australia as she was when it left Britain.

Despite the title, the film deals much more with the voyage than it does with what happens when the ship reaches Botany Bay. Some, observing the similarities between James Mason's Gilbert, who tyrannises over both the prisoners and his crew, and Captain Bligh, have described it as an unacknowledged remake of the 1935 version of "Mutiny on the Bounty", which is perhaps not surprising as the two films were based upon novels by the same authors, Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. (Nordhoff and Hall normally collaborated on their books).

I would not, however, rate it as highly as the earlier film, for a number of reasons. Mason could on occasions give decent performances even in otherwise mediocre films, such as "The Reckless Moment", but he is unable to rescue "Botany Bay", which must count as one of his worst films. Unlike Charles Laughton as Bligh in "Mutiny on the Bounty" (or Trevor Howard in the remake), Mason never really makes us believe in Gilbert's cruelty or tyranny, largely because neither he nor the scriptwriters seem able to decide what sort of man Gilbert is. Is he simply a bully? Or a sadist who tries to hide his sadism behind a thin veneer of gentlemanly behaviour? Or a man whose character gradually deteriorates because of the corrupting effect of power? All three interpretations would be possible, but Mason and the film-makers can never seem to decide which one they favour.

The film's main weakness, however, is not so much the characterization of the villain as the characterization of the hero. Or, I should say, of the supposed hero. Tallant comes across as not just a complete jerk but a complete idiot as well. When Gilbert discovers the truth about Tallant's pardon and his medical training he makes him the surprisingly generous offer of the position of ship's surgeon. Tallant, however, is so eaten up with resentment that he refuses this offer and instead makes various foolish and ill-conceived attempts to escape. Worse still, he offers £1000 to any person who will help him in these attempts, which only brings Gilbert's wrath down upon these persons' heads as well as Tallant's own when the attempts inevitably fail. Yet despite this combination of boorishness and stupidity, we are still supposed to find Tallant likeable. Alan Ladd could be a very good actor, as he was in that great classic "Shane", but he could also fall well short of that standard, as he does here.

The film also suffers from historical errors. Gilbert wants to have Tallant charged with mutiny, which would not have been possible, even if the "Charlotte" were a Royal Navy ship, because Tallant is not a person subject to naval discipline. Also, Gilbert has Tallant keelhauled, a punishment not used on British ships. ("Mutiny on the Bounty" also included a historically unwarranted keelhauling incident). Although the film was made at a time when some Hollywood Westerns were trying to get away from the once-common stereotype of Native Americans as bloodthirsty savages, the Australian Aborigines (played by Afro-American actors) are portrayed in precisely that unenlightened way. "Botany Bay" is the sort of historical drama that gets historical dramas a bad name. 4/10

Thinly veiled 'Mutiny on the Bounty'

[HotToastyRag · 3/10 · 28 June 2018]

You'd think a movie about the founding of Botany Bay would be really interesting, but this 1952 "swashbuckling adventure" was incredibly tedious. A bunch of convicts, with Alan Ladd, Patricia Medina, Murray Matheson, and Anita Sharp-Bolster as the featured leads, are sent to sail from England to New South Wales in the 1700s. Of course, since Alan Ladd can't put on a British accent, his character is written to be an American; and of course, even though she's one of very few women on board, already has a bad reputation, and walks around with her dress perpetually falling off her shoulders, no one takes advantage of Patricia Medina.

Besides the unrealistic aspects of the story-no one would survive the punishments Alan Ladd endured-it still isn't very good. James Mason is the tough-as-nails sea captain, thinly veiled as another Captain Bligh. This movie is so closely a remake of Mutiny on the Bounty, it's as if James Mason got upset that no one wanted to redo the story in the 1950s so Hollywood appeased him with this. While I'm on the subject, I don't know why he wasn't cast in the 1962 remake; he could easily played any number of villains, like Captain Bligh, Inspector Javert, and Messala. And yes, James looks handsome in his captain's uniform, but unless you want to see him ordering fifty lashes and keel-hauling as if he's merely asking someone to refill his martini, feel free to skip this one. He looks handsome in almost every other movie he made, so you can sit through one of those.

We are bound for Botany Bay

[rogerblake-281-718819 · 9/10 · 27 November 2012]

In the late 18th and early 19th century Great Britain used to get rid of her low lifes and petty felons by transporting them off to Botany Bay (Australia) in prison ships. A motley bunch who undoubtedly needed a firm hand and strong discipline. In James Mason's captain they certainly got that. On the surface he has a degree of charm and compassion but underneath he is a sadistic psychopath with possible suppressed gay feelings,this 1952 Hollywood could only hint at such things. By comparison he makes Captain Bligh seem like a lovable old softie. James Mason gives an absolutely brilliant performance. He was excellent in these sort of roles.

It doesn't take long for him and the hero played by Alan Ladd to fall out.

Ladd who has suffered a miscarriage of justice has a large chip on his shoulder. Also on board is a young female convict played by the lovely Patricia Medina whose cleavage must have given the censors a few headaches and a good eyeful. She is also big trouble. Mason certainly has it in for Ladd sentencing him to fifty lashes then threatening to keelhaul him. When told that nobody has been keelhauled for fifty years Mason in his best sneering voice says "I don't think its been quite that long". Ladd much to Mason's annoyance survives.

John Farrow,the director,doesn't pull his punches depicting the horror,unpleasantness and cruelty suffered by the convicts. It may have seemed necessary at the time but to modern sensibilities it was not Britain's finest hour,it is the most realistic part of the film. Of course this was an American film financed by American money so lets have a little dig at Britain's colonial past. I'm surprised that the anti British Mel Gibson hasn't remade it.

Be that as it may when they land Australia looks like the Paramount back lot. The good news is that Mason gets his comeuppance thanks to a well directed Aborigine spear. Then HOORAY Alan Ladd's pardon arrives and the benevolent governor allows Patricia Medina to become his bride (no doubt their descendants delight in thrashing England at cricket)

Not a classic but a fine salty saga all in glorious Technicolor.

Ladd is excellent in this type of role. Apart perhaps from "Shane" he is undeservedly a forgotten name now.

This must be one of the few Australian based films made in the fifties that didn't feature that wonderful character actor Chips Rafferty.

Patricia Medina's cleavage is worth a star on its own so I'll give it nine which I think is a fair mark.

Chidren admitted to this sadistic film

[jromanbaker · 1/10 · 16 May 2020]

In 1952 this nasty film was given an ' A ' certificate which meant in the UK a child could be admitted with an adult. Given the high level of sadism, including the torture of a child and floggings of both men and women I think the censor of the times was being too lenient. Keelhauling is also included. I saw this a short while ago on Talking Pictures, a Channel of repute for a wide range of films. I was shocked by it and I am not young. The violence is unremitting and when not shown explicitly is constantly there. Alan Ladd walks through the film, and James Mason is good at cruelty. I have no idea if any of this supposed entertainment is accurate, and if it is it says a lot about the UK's indifference to such atrocities. I have seen 15 certificate films of today with less psychological brutality. This is definitely not fit for children today, but sadism in UK films has always been more acceptable than sexuality, and this shows our troubled puritanism.

Lashings of tedium

[wilvram · 4/10 · 14 August 2020]

A remarkably dull tale of convicts, including a wrongly convicted medical student (Alan Ladd) being transported to Botany Bay under an inhuman captain (James Mason).

Very little happens in the first hour or so, little more than a catalogue of atrocities culminating in a double keel-hauling. No wonder a contemporary review in the Evening Standard recommended it 'for boys and ghouls'. The latter certainly. As the main victim, Ladd emerges as unusually chipper throughout. Once Botany Bay is reached the story picks up a little, but it still doesn't amount to much. The cast tend to be more competent than usual for movies of this kind, but rather dull. The scriptwriters should have walked the plank.