The Sea Wolf (1941)

Director: Michael Curtiz

Writers: Robert Rosson, based on the novel by Jack London

Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Alexander Knox, Ida Lupino, John Garfield, Gene Lockhart, Barry Fitzgerald, Stanley Ridges, David Bruce

Edward G. Robinson's Wolf Larsen is a self-educated man, a sadistic genius who has developed the humiliation and manipulation of his fellow man into a science.

 

He is the alpha male in a crew whose willingness to exploit any sign of weakness in order to gain advantage places it barely above the level of the animal.

 

Onto his ship come a trio of castaways, whose various fates among Larsen's men we follow.

 

Particularly interesting is Larson's relationship with the writer Humphrey Van Wyden, portrayed by Alexander Knox.

 

Van Wyden understands exactly what kind of man Larsen is and refuses to play the sycophant. 

Larsen listens to, and even invites, his criticisms with all the fascination of a man seeing himself in the mirror for the first time.