In May 1939, a cruise ship is allowed to leave Hamburg, Germany with 937 Jewish passengers bound for Havana, Cuba. En route, Captain Schroeder (Max von Sydow) is informed that the passengers will not be allowed to disembark once they reach their destination. Nazi propagandists organized the stunt to demonstrate that Jews were unwanted anywhere and therefore the world could raise no moral objection to Germany's treatment of them, making every nation that refused them as refugees complicit in the Holocaust. With very few options available and running out of time before they will have to return to Germany, Schroeder and Morris Troper (Ben Gazzara), a Jewish activist, work to keep the increasingly desperate passengers from panicking while exhausting every diplomatic channel to find them a sympathetic port.
This is based on a true story. The MS St. Louis was turned away from multiple ports, including the United States, because of anti-Semitism, xenophobia, and fears of provoking Hitler. Sixty years later, people apologized so I guess that's okay.
Really wish this didn't feel quite so prescient.
Anyway, the movie stars a whole lot of famous people including Malcom McDowell, Faye Dunaway, Orson Welles, Jose Ferrer, James Mason, Katherine Ross, and was the debut of Jonathan Pryce. It's relentlessly depressing but serves as a timely reminder that it's always moral to punch Nazis in the face. It's streaming on Amazon or the Roku Channel with ads. Don't watch it with ads. It is extremely jarring to go from passengers grappling with the terror of an uncertain future to an ad about dog chews.
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