Two short features make up this movie. The first, THE SECRET SHARER, is based on the Joseph Conrad story. James Mason is a young man in the days of sail, enjoying the solitude of the midnight watch on his first command, when Michael Pate swims up and asks for refuge; he's been falsely accused of mutiny and fled for his life.
Mason gives a marvelous performance, filled with intelligence and curiosity that fills the viewer with confidence. I didn't know why he trusted Pate, but even when he seems to be driving his ships into the rocks to give the refugee cover to escape, I trusted him. It also offers some offbeat casting, with Gene Lockhart as bearded skipper.
The second story is THE BRIDE COMES TO YELLOW SKY. It's a Bret Harte sort of story originally written by Stephen Crane. In it, sheriff Robert Preston is fetching his bride, Marjorie Steele, back to town, while old-timer Minor Watson is getting drunk and shooting up everyone between him and Preston. Once again, Watson is cast far outside his usual authority-figure personna, and is having a lot of fun. The performances seem very stagey here, possibly because Miss Steele was more a stage actress; she was also the wife of Huntington Hartford, the owner of about a third of A&P, and the producer of this movie.
Despite some issues with the second story, it's very good to see the tales told without padding to bring them up to full feature length. With Dan Seymour, Olive Carey, and James Agee -- who wrote the script for the second tale.
