Morituri

Morituri (also known as The Saboteur: Code Name Morituri) is a 1965 American war thriller film directed by Bernhard Wicki and starring Marlon Brando, Yul Brynner, Janet Margolin and Trevor Howard. The cinematography was by Conrad L. Hall, and the film musical score was composed by Jerry Goldsmith. Based on a 1958 novel of the same title by German writer Werner Jörg Lüddecke, the film centers on a German pacificist (Brando) blackmailed by the Allied into sabotaging a Nazi-controlled merchant ship, whose captain is having his own second thoughts about the war effort. The title of the film is from the Latin phrase, Morituri te salutant (“We who are about to die, salute you”), attributed to Roman gladiators. Wicki's first English-language film, Moritiuri received generally positive reviews but was a commercial flop. It was nominated for two Oscars in the 38th Academy Awards, for Best Black-and-White Cinematography and Best Black-and-White Costume Design. Plot Robert Crain (Marlon Brando) is a wealthy German engineer and pacifist who fled to India under a fabricated Swiss identity after being conscripted into the Wehrmacht at the start of World War II. He is blackmailed by English Colonel Statter (Trevor Howard) and the Allies into participating in a plan to seize a shipment of rubber, which is in short supply and essential for both sides' war efforts, that will soon be carried by the German merchant ship Ingo from Japan to Nazi-occupied Bordeaux. As all German merchant ships are under orders to scuttle themselves to prevent the capture of their cargoes by Allied forces, Crain's task is to use his engineering knowledge to disable the scuttling charges on the Ingo before the Allies move to take the ship. Crain is provided with fake documentation and a cover story: he is Standartenführer Hans Keil, a high-ranking SS officer needing to return to Germany.