Based a novel by B. Traven, The Death Ship tells the story of an American sailor who, after his papers are stolen in the Belgium port city of Antwerp, sets out on an odyssey through Europe, finally signing on to an old ship that turns out to belong to smugglers. Director Georg Tressler, known for his more socially oriented works, here created an adventure film—a genre not often found in German cinema—that focuses on the sailor’s attempts to return home amidst a world of cutthroats and thieves. Horst Buchholz was regarded as one of the most promising young actors of the time, but with the emergence of the New German Cinema of the 1960s, he began to receive fewer parts and eventually emigrated to France and the United States.