Reap the Wild Wind (1942)
Director: Cecil B. DeMille
Honors:
Cecil B. DeMille, the rare motion picture director of his
day to establish himself in celebrity status, produces a uncommon Technicolor
spectacle film during World War II when money and resources were tighter within
the motion picture industry. The resulting feature was one of the greatest box
office draws in Hollywood for the year as audiences were brought on a high seas
adventure both above and below the ocean waters. Featuring beautiful
Technicolor and exciting special effects, this picture had more when it came to
attracting audiences to the theater in the spring and summer of 1942.
Reap the Wild Wind
is an adventure picture about a female ship salvager in the 1840s, her
relationship with a rescued sea captain, and the complications of their romance
when another suitor enters the picture. Loxi (Paulette Goddard) makes her
living salvaging ships that run aground on the reefs just off the Florida Keys.
While nursing captain named Jack Stuart
(John Wayne) whom she had rescued from one of her salvaging a ship she begins
to fall in love with and attempts to use her own power to win Jack a new ship
to skipper. However while attempting to do so she catches the eye of the Steve
Tolliver, the man that runs the ship line Jack works for, and he begins to pursue
Loxi.
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| John Wayne, Paulette Goddard, and Ray Milland |
Due to possible love triangle jealousy between the two men
arise and Jack secretly partner’s up with crooked salvager King Cutler (Raymond
Massey) to intentionally sink a ship of Tolliver’s for the gain of Cutler. A
livid Tolliver brings Jack to trail and through testimony learns of prospect of
Loxi’s cousin Drusilla (Susan Hayward) having stowed away and being lost in the
wreck. This news is confirmed in a dangerous dive to into the wreckage by Jack
and Tolliver where Jack sacrifices his own life to save Tolliver’s from a giant
squid as the ship sinks further into deep water. Through reactions of
Drusilla’s death Culter, now revealed to be the true villain to all, is killed in
a scuffle between Culter, Toliver and Drusilla’s fiancé. Somehow through all of
this Loxi and Tolliver end up finding refuge with one another as we are left
with them as a loving couple despite the tragedies.
The film is a bit all over the place and very dated from a
contemporary point of view, but keeping in mind the time of the film’s release
and the audiences would have been used to seeing on the big screen this was a
spectacle of a motion picture by comparison. The movie features some very
notably named actors, the beautiful Technicolor visuals, and dazzling special
effects of that era (understanding that it is 1942 standards), making it one of
the most attractive features for audiences to see when they desired a night at
the theater that year.
DeMille was a spectacle director and he, as expected, would
go above and beyond to produce a movie that has something audiences usually did
not see in the typical motion picture. The scope of Reap the Wild Wind was not as vast as The Squaw Man (1931) or Cleopatra
(1934), but it was DeMille’s second feature shot in the very price Technicolor process
and contained underwater photography accomplished with giant water tanks
containing live sea life and a very large rubber squid, which can be likened in
a way to Walt Disney’s live action feature 20,000
Leagues Under the Sea (1954). All these aspects are remarkable considering
the fact that Hollywood, like the rest of the nation at that time, was cutting
costs and conserving resources. After the film concluded production the giant
rubber quid would be donated for the war effort as rubber was scarce because of
the international strife.
The picture stars Ray Milland, Paulette Goddard, and John
Wayne, three significant screen performers of their day. Although it is Goddard
and Wayne that serve as the film’s main romantic story, it is Milland’s
sophisticated Tolliver character that ends ups with Goddard as John Wayne’s
character shares a unique dark side. Through his long, illustrious career itt
would be a rarity to see Wayne play a character that is partially the villain
and further more a character that dies before the end of the feature. In a career
that consisted of stanch heroes for which he would be best remembered for, this
appearance is worth noting a being very different to his usual roles.
Goddard is the focus the feature as a strong willed woman,
an aspect that DeMille strongly sought in this story as he toyed around with
the original plot, adapting it from a serial story in the Saturday Evening Post
to the silver screen. With her attractive looks and her very own strong will
she fills the role of Loxi well with character, but is a bit unbelievable a
woman that would make her living at see, with he Hollywood looks and all.
In years to come when the movie was re-released to make
further profit, John Wayne’s name would be lifted to the top billing on the
movie posters and marquees at movie houses as Wayne’s star shined brighter than
his co-stars in later years, making his name more marketable. The same can be
said for Susan Hayward who plays Drusilla, Loxi’s innocent cousin that dies in
the shipwreck. Hayward during these re-releases would see he name billed just
under Wayne because of her growing fame even though her role was relatively
minor in the overall scope of the picture.
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| Robert Preston and Raymond Massey. |
Also featured in the picture are Raymond Massey, who plays
the film’s villain King Cutler, and Robert Preston, as his brother who happens
to be Drusilla’s fiancé. Massey is a wonderful character actor and an easy man
to hate in his role. He is a king of the evil look and is perfect as the film’s
chief villain. Robert Preston really is an after though of the picture and
seems to just appear at the right time to simply push the plot forward, despite
we as an audience have no emotional connection with him. His character is so
unassuming and appears cliché as his role just barely works for the picture. Preston’s
performance comes off much more forced and out of place further making his
appearance awkward in his short amount of time on screen. His appearance feels
rushed, as if the film needed to be longer so that we got to know him better
before the film’s climax, but the film as a whole already feels entirely too
long as it is.
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| Wayne battles a giant squid in this underwater shot. |
As mentioned before, all the color and special effects at a
time when extravagance in movies were being cut back because of the war made
this feature into a box office attraction of merit. For John Wayne this would
his greatest finical success of his career, when adjusted for inflation, despite
he almost passed up on the role because he felt his character was weak playing
second fiddle to Milland. Critics of the period give the impression to have
liked the feature, especially for the underwater cinematography. In honor of
the picture the Academy Awards bestowed the feature its prize for best visual
effects to Reap the Wild Wind thanks to the miniature effects shots of the
ships and the (not so life like) squid scene.
In retrospect the picture felt too long and poorly written
in a manner where one does not feel for any of the characters at all. The
romance between Loxi and Jack give the impression of building steam in the plot,
but when Jack dies and Loxi just defaults to Tolliver leaves me with an awkward
taste in my mouth. I felt I was supposed to dislike Tolliver through the film
despite his love for Loxi and somehow the two just end up together with no
actual romance. Of course the special effects are atrocious when compared to films
of just a decade or so later, but you cannot hold that against DeMille and his
feature as it attempts to deliver a create no audience had seen before.
In the end the film does not hold up well in the eyes of
this humble reviewer. I can see how some can very much enjoy this movie, but
for me it was a struggle to watch despite the history and the actors involved.
I can appreciate the time and place of the feature in the annuls of cinema
history, but find the overall piece easily forgettable as a motion picture in
the grand vision of this chronological march through cinema.
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