Save your money for something good and enjoyable

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

When a film receives critical acclaim the director is usually the first person that the media points to as being responsible for the film's success. I noticed that IMDB has Billy Budd at an overall rating of 7.9 which I am more than a bit surprised at such a high overall rating. Peter Ustinov as the film's director penciled himself in as none other than the ship's Post Captain of the Royal Navy, Edwin Fairfax Vere, and the crew's moral compass. When Billy Budd is confronted by the mean and manipulative liar Master of Arms/Captain John Claggart (Robert Ryan) trouble follows the young Billy Budd (played by 24 year old Terrence Stamp), whose fate is left in the hands of the ship's Post Captain of the Royal Navy, Edwin Fairfax Vere, and his military brass.I thought Robert Ryan was not cast properly as the Master Of Arms and that hat he is wearing looked absolutely ridiculous. His hat reminds me of the Irish leprechaun from the Lucky Charms cereal commercials. All that was needed was for Robert Ryan to jump up in the air and kick up his heels as he doles out his punishment(s) to the various crew members to be reminded he was acting more like a leprechaun and less as a Master Of Arms.I also did not think that this film held up well over the decades. I certainly would not even place it near to the class of watchable film as the 1954 film Caine Mutiny, starring Humphrey Bogart, and/or the 1962 Mutiny On the Bounty, starring Marlon Brando. I love the old films all the way from the 1940's-70's so as much as I wanted to see Billy Budd I am going to blame the poor delivery on the film's director and star Peter Ustinov. He really should have stuck to acting only.I give the film a poor 3 out of 10 rating. I cannot recommend Billy Budd for any value whatsoever.

This adaption of Herman Melville's unpublished novella served to introduce Terrence Stamp to the movie-going public in his breakout part in the title role. It's one of the great portrayals of innocence in a cruel world on the big screen. And it's also one of the great portrayals of unsatisfied homosexual desire in the person of Billy Budd's great adversary, Master-At-Arms John Claggett as played by Robert Ryan.Melville as a New Englander knew full well about English impressment of seaman. And in 1797 after the mutinies in the fleet at Spithead they were needing sailors worse than ever. The Royal Navy had no compunction about taking seaman from their own civilian merchant ships as well as American ones. A press gang comes aboard the merchant ship and takes young Billy Budd of striking looks and undetermined origin for service in His Majesty's Navy.On board the British warship, Stamp's happy go lucky attitude makes friends among the crew, but arouses the enmity of Ryan who just has it in for him from day one. He's a cruel and sadistic sort in any event, but Stamp arouses something special in him and the word arouse can have several meanings in this context.I don't want to give too much away, but if one is familiar with Herman Melville's slightly better known work of Moby Dick you will find certain parallels. The great white whale that everyone is conscious of is the French enemy and their fleet. When they attack the problems of the ship and its discipline seem petty indeed.Between the two poles of good (Stamp) and evil (Ryan) is the captain Peter Ustinov and the rest of the crew. From Ustinov on down they watch the drama played out between Stamp and Ryan, knowing who was in the right, but also knowing what the rules, in this case the Articles of War call for.Terrence Stamp in his second film and in the title role got an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, the only nomination the film received. He lost to Ed Begley for Sweet Bird Of Youth. But his performance wouldn't be possible without the excellent and unrecognized one of Robert Ryan. The two play off each other so well.The story of Billy Budd lay undiscovered after Melville's death in 1891 until 1924. It's been made both a play and an opera, but this film version is a most satisfying piece of cinema.

It's not a well-known movie, but people, this is a true masterpiece. It's almost like an European art movie, there's nothing Hollywood in it. Ustinov is a sensitive director who respects and remains true to the book (a rarity). A good idea it was made in B&W, for it makes the whole thing extremely beautiful. Hail to the photographer. And a perfect cast. Ustinov, although better known for his great comic roles, is a serious, noble, sympathetic Captain Vere. Okay, he's not as attractive as Philip Langridge (who played the role in the '88 filmed stage version), but he's credible. For Billy, the incredibly young, angelic, nice, innocent Terence Stamp was a perfect choice. He looks exactly like Melville described the character, and he's truly good and lovable without being a Mary-Sue. Maybe the only "extra" is that although naive, he has some kind of wisdom: he understands Claggart and tries to befriend him. And for the master-at-arms, Robert Ryan (who was so sympathetic and tormented in The Wild Bunch) is Evil incarnate. Not your overplayed bad guy, but a silent, smiling sadist. His death scene is one of the most frightening things I've ever seen: the dies SMILING, as if he knew he has won, and that Billy would die for this, too. One must think Claggart actually WANTED to be killed. He tempts fate again and again till he gets what he deserves. Not many movies are there what made me cry, but this one did. There's much more in it than a symbolic fight between Good and Evil. Billy might be an angel, and Claggart might be a lovechild of Iago, but the actors make them human. The tragedy is that there was the possibility of loving each other. Billy had offered it, and Claggart almost fell for good, but he couldn't deny his natural depravity. As for the homoerotic undertones: yes, they are there. Especially in Ryan's Claggart. His hate is mostly an oppressed lust.So it's a nearly-perfect movie, it really deserves more popularity. MJelville is so under-adapted! Only two versions exist for Moby Dick, and BB wasn't filmed again (at least not for cinemas) since this film.

"Billy Budd" (1962) directed by Peter Ustinov was a great surprise of the time, concerning what happened to a young and quite mute sailor when he was supposed to be the mate who wants to kill the commander. There is a trial and Billy Budd was condemned to death without chance and immediately. The cruelty of the implication in a kind of minor unrest and the ability in how he was indicted as criminal, by the way of judging a free thinker and not at all a violent individual, also it shows us how it's easy to put in jail someone with a fake accusation because of his behavior and insolence. Peter Ustinov and Terence Stamp both were for the very good exploit of direction and main character, thinking surely in a young audience of teenagers mainly for the purpose of the story written by Melville long time ago. The scene of the rope on the deck of the ship sailing the sea as though without enough wind running slowly under a calm weather and during the moment before the execution of the damned sailor, not acquitted on contrary of what was provable, is performed with such a good emotion that some weeping low of contained rage with this extreme measure of the sentence against a civilized young man, whom the death penalty is like grace for his own calm torment, before this almost unrealistic ceremony of fake secret unrest for all that whom observes it. But without against such a strength to prevent it as so pathetic is his character of a sacrificed for abuse from the law and the interpretation wrongly made by the maritime trial there far away of the shores. Another strength of this movie it was the character of the chief in arms performed by Robert Ryan in the role of an heinous sailor that put Billy in a state of permanent suspecting. By this way in that story is killed by this last one, which provokes the trial and the intervention of the commander for this execution. As well raising in surplus a problem of discipline in a vessel, whose crew was partly constituted by young civilians as recruits on the spot in 1797, during the state of war on Mediterrean sea between England and France.