The film was first premiered onboard the S.S. America[3][4] traveling from Los Angeles to San Francisco, its special group of passengers including many cast members.

The version of the film screened was the original theatrical cut that was reassembled after 35mm nitrate elements were discovered at the Museum of Modern Art.

It included thirteen minutes of footage that were cut from the film in 1947 when it was re-released as a double-feature with the 1940 Errol Flynn vehicle with a similar name.

The original cut of the film, digitally remastered and restored, was released through Warner Brothers' Archive Collection on DVD and Blu-ray on October 10, 2017.

[6] Fiction writer Humphrey Van Weyden and escaped convict Ruth Webster are passengers on a ferry that collides with another vessel and sinks.

Larsen refuses to return to port early and forces Van Weyden to work in the kitchen under the supervision of "Cooky", the ship's cook.

Larsen asserts the Nietzschean proposition that man is essentially an amoral animal, and that morality is a construct that has no bearing on life onboard his ship.

When Dr. Prescott, the ship's drunken doctor, determines that the unconscious Webster needs a transfusion to survive, Larsen "volunteers" George Leach, even though there is no way to test if his blood is compatible.

Larsen suffers from intense headaches that leave him temporarily blind, but hides his condition from the crew, knowing that he will eventually lose his sight permanently.

This act of seeming self-sacrifice disturbs Larsen, causing him to question his whole philosophy, until he realizes that Van Weyden is dying from his bullet wound.

"[10] The eerie atmosphere was heightened by the studio's newly-installed fog-making machine in the largest soundstage that could accommodate full-scale ship deck sets.

Bosley Crowther gave the film a mixed review in The New York Times on March 22, 1941: “…We don't recall that (Larsen) has ever been presented with such scrupulous psychological respect… (but) the drive of the drama is impaired, for precious time is wasted [talking] when bloody business on deck might be occupying the screen, …When topside, however, it rolls along ruthlessly…” Crowther expressed “emphatic criticism” on two points, “the representation of a crude blood transfusion at sea is not only implausible but completely anachronistic.

And, in the second place, we dislike sea-pictures photographed in a tank, where the water laps as in a bathtub and the fog rolls like a steam-room mist.