Mary Treadwell, a wealthy American widow aboard a ship bound for Germany in 1933, watches her fellow passengers — and Europe itself — drift towards disaster.
In Ship of Fools (1965), directed by Stanley Kramer, Vivien Leigh plays Mary Treadwell, a divorced American woman travelling from Mexico to Germany aboard a German ocean liner in 1933, as the Nazi regime rises. Among her fellow passengers are a German doctor, played by Oskar Werner, a Spanish countess, and a group of Jewish refugees, and Mary, who is sharp-tongued and lonely, finds herself drawn to the doctor.
Leigh plays Mary with a brittle wit and a deep sadness. She is a woman who has been hurt, who protects herself with sarcasm, and who, in her scenes with Werner, shows a tenderness she rarely allows herself.
Ship of Fools was Leigh’s last film, and it is a fitting farewell: a story of people on a voyage they cannot control, played by an actress who, even in her final role, commanded the screen.