SOURCE: Philips, Gene D. “The Lower Depths: Film Versions of Conrad's Short Fiction.” In Conrad and Cinema: The Art of Adaptation, pp. 81-95. New York: Peter Lang, 1995.

In the following essay, Philips compares Conrad's “The Secret Sharer” with two film adaptations of the story.

“the Secret Sharer”: the Short Story

Conrad recalls in the “Author's Note” to “The Secret Sharer” in the Collected Edition, where it appears in the volume entitled ‘Twixt Land and Sea Tales [‘Twixt Land and Sea], that the central episode in the story was derived from an actual happening.

When Conrad came to write the tale in 1909, he recalled an incident that had occurred in the fall of 1880 aboard the vessel Cutty Sark, an event about which he had read a good deal in newspaper accounts of the time. Sydney Smith, the chief mate of the ship, ordered a member of the crew, John...