Le Dernier Voyage:

The Ile de France's Appointment with the Scrapyard

By: John McCall

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

The era of the great trans-Atlantic liners has come and gone. Most of these grand ships--proudly turning away from the reality of jet travel--kept on churning in the Atlantic for much longer than economics should have allowed. The French were particularly fond of theirs, and one, the Ile de France found the reprieve as a floating set for the reality of Andrew and Virginia Stone's docu-thriller, The Last Voyage in 1960.

Author John McCall offers up a novel--based on careful research--of the ship's tragic end, from M-G-M's cameras documenting explosions and flooding of her art moderne interiors to the Ile's final dismemberment in an Osaka wrecking yard. The story is told by a Frenchman, formerly an assistant chef with the French Line who is hired by director Stone to make the final voyage to Osaka on the re-named Furansu Maru, thence providing repasts for the film's crew and stars, including Edmond O'Brien, Dorothy Malone, Robert Stack, and the true hero of the epic, Woody Strode. Appropriately titled The Last Voyage, the film paved the way for the disaster genre of celluloid--perennially popular through another two decades. Stone's film, perhaps, stands--though flawed--as one of the most realistic and (quite by chance) important visual archives of a major ship of state. The Ile de France was the paradigm of prime naval architecture on the high seas. And through the eyes of the novel's Henri Guerard, the glory and romance, and yes, the final death throes of the great liner are told. The Ile de France, indeed, becomes a person through Guerard's cognizance; a beautiful woman--nearing the famous, romantic end of her life. Le Dernier Voyage provides an imaginative but historically correct recount that will be of interest to aficionados of ship lore, maritime design, Hollywood and the intrigue of ultimate destiny.