CAVIAR CRUISE

Caviar Cruise--a sixteen-day Mediterranean affair--is not all champagne even if it does offer one of those straight action stories (Brannington's Leopard, etc.) with no showcase effects. After a few Haileyesque specifics, Webb gets right down to the intentions of First Mate Howard. He's been synchronizing them for some time--namely staging a fire, dumping the passengers, lifting their jewelry and cash, and scuttling the luxury ship. Howard is helped, he is also hindered by the new young doctor (performing an appendectomy), his nurse, and a cynical American who anticipate the course of events. Nothing pretentious but a compact story kept watertight.