Billy Budd

When I was in high school, one of the books we had to read was Herman Melville's Billy Budd. It's really only a novella, because Herman Melville never actually finished it and what we have is what he left behind at the time of his death combined with some compilation and editing by his widow and later scholars. The book was popular enough, however, that in the late 1940s the material was adapted into a stage play; it's that play which is the basis for the 1962 movie Billy Budd.

The year is 1797, and if you remember the movie Damn the Defiant! that I reviewed a several weeks back, you'll recall that this was the year that the British Royal Navy suffered the Spithead mutiny, which was quite a serious thing. Edward Vere (Peter Ustinov) is the captain of the HMS Avenger, and in need of replenishing his crew. Since there's a war on and he's at sea, going to port and impressing the men there, as we've seen from other naval movies like Mutiny on the Bounty, is a non-starter.

Ah, but the laws of war suggest that in a time of war the Royal Navy may impress men from British-flagged merchant ships. After all, they're already sailors. So when the Avenger encounters the Rights of Man, Capt. Vere takes some of the crew, including a young foretopman named Billy Budd (Terence Stamp in his feature film debut).

Billy is considered a naïf by his crewmates, but he also has a strange sort of charisma, where practically everybody he meets loves him because he's just so... something or other. This even though he doesn't seem to have any desire to be a leader of men. He just wants to get on with his work. The only person who soesn't seem to like Billy is the ship's Master of arms, Claggard (Robert Ryan). That, however, is because Claggart doesn't like anybody. In a bit of reversal from Mutiny on the Bounty, it's Claggart who feels the need for iron discipline, while the captain has a more nuanced view.

Still, Billy is just so nice that he's going to try to get in the good graces of Claggart not out of any desire to toady up the a boss who has considerable power over him, but because it seems he's incapable of doing anything else. Claggart isn't stupid, and sees the power that Billy unwittingly has over other crewmen, so Claggart decides he's going to trump up charges against Billy by any means necessary. Knowing of the Spithead mutinies, Claggart gets his loyalists to try to fabricate evidence that Billy is part of an incipient mutiny.

When Vere calls Claggart and Budd in for a meeting, Budd has one of his few weaknesses, which is a nervous stammer. He's incapable of saying what he's thinking because Claggart's bullying has made him so scared. So he instinctively reacts physically, accidentally striking Claggart, who falls backwards and hits his head, killing himself. In a modern-day court of law on dry land, this would probably be negligent manslaughter, but at sea during war, it's a court-martial offense, and the penalty is death, even if everybody is secretly relieved that Claggart is dead and nobody really wants Billy to die if they had their way.

Herman Melville is not my favorite author, so when I had to read Billy Budd back in high school I wasn't too thrilled with it. This movie adaptation, however, really makes the material come to life, thanks in no small part to a series of excellent performances by the three leads. There's also smaller supporting roles for Melvyn Douglas and David McCallum, among others.

If you haven't seen Billy Budd before, do yourself a favor and watch it. It's much better than the Melville novella.