Robert Crain is a German pacifist during World War II, living in India as a Swiss national. He is blackmailed by English Colonel Statter and the Allies into going along with a plan to use his engineering knowledge to disable the scuttling charges on a German merchant ship carrying rubber from Japan. The Allies hope to bomb the ship and recover its cargo, as rubber is in short supply and essential for both sides' war effort. They provide Crain with fake documentation and a cover story that he is a high-ranking SS officer needing to sail to Germany. On board the ship, Crain finds the captain to be a patriotic German whose humanistic inclinations are hostile to Nazi principles. The first officer, Kruse, is a fanatical Party member who keeps a close eye on the captain. Crain convinces Kruse that he too is suspicious of the captain's loyalties. Several of the crew are in effect prisoners because of their political views, however they are pressed into service because of labor shortages. In time, after one of them tries to kill him, Crain enlists them in a plan to have the Allies take the ship. Complications arise when a number of American prisoners and two German Naval officers are taken on board from a Japanese submarine. Also brought aboard is Esther, a young German Jew who has been raped and tortured by her Nazi captors. Despite the horrors she has been subjected to, she is still openly defiant of every German she encounters on board the ship, including the captain and Crain. The captain, when he is alone with her and is able to overcome her expectation that he too is a brutalizer, tells her he plans to assist her to escape once the ship gets to Europe. However, when Kruse learns that she is Jewish that is no longer a possibility. Later Crain persuades her to join in his plot, but she is disgusted by his lack of commitment to the anti-Nazi cause. The two German officers, who are familiar with military personnel and operations in the Far East, become suspicious of Crain and radio to Berlin to check on his credentials. That gives him less than 24 hours to complete the mission. While awaiting the report, the captain, upon hearing that his son has become an accomplished Nazi military officer, in a drunken rage reveals the full extent of his anti-Nazi beliefs. This gives Kruse a reason to take command of the ship. About to be exposed, Crain organizes a mutiny. For it to have any chance of success the American prisoners would need to participate, but when Esther appeals to them for help they only agree on condition that she is sexually compliant with them. The mutiny is easily defeated, and Kruse shoots Esther for her part in it. Crain is able to elude the search for him long enough to detonate the demolition charges he had not yet disabled. The surviving crew abandons ship, during which the anti-Nazi German sailors make sure the wounded Kruse drowns. Crain and the captain are the only persons left on board. The lard in the ship's hold spills and acts as a stopper, temporarily keeping the ship afloat. Crain asks the captain to radio the Allies for rescue, and is surprised when the captain does so.
The film did not do well on its original release and was a financial disaster. In an attempt to increase its commercial appeal, the film was reissued in 1965 under a new title as Saboteur: Code Name Morituri. Critic Bosley Crowther of the New York Times criticized it for being "turgid." He praised Brando's performance, however, saying: The title "Morituri", the plural of a Latin word meaning "about to die," is a reference to a phrase used by Suetonius, Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant. Critic reviews of the time have not been collated on Rotten Tomatoes, but the film has a 71% approval rating by audience viewers.
Box office
According to Fox records, the film needed to earn $10,500,000 in rentals to break even and made $4,045,000.
After having appeared in a series of box office disappointments, Brando agreed to promote Morituri for the studio by participating in a day-long press junket at the Hampshire Hotel in New York City. This event was the subject of Meet Marlon Brando, a 29-minute black-and-white documentary film directed by Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin. Brando was praised for his performance in the documentary by critic Howard Thompson who wrote, "The actor was never more appealing than in this candid-camera cameo, his best performance." The documentary premiered at the New York Film Festival in 1966. Since then, it has aired on French television but was not shown in its entirety in the United States until Fandor made it available on November 15, 2013.
