Reap the Wild Wind (1942)

★ 6.4 1h 59m IMDb

Action Romance Adventure

The Florida Keys in 1840, where the implacable hurricanes of the Caribbean scream, where the salvagers of Key West, like the intrepid and beautiful Loxi Claiborne and her crew, reap, aboard frail schooners, the harvest of the wild wind, facing the shark teeth of the reefs to rescue the sailors and the cargo from the shipwrecks caused by the scavengers of the sea.

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Cast

Paulette Goddard as Loxi Claiborne Died 1990 · Whitestone Landing, Long Island, New York, USA From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Paulette Goddard (June 3, 1910 – April 23, 1990) was an American film and theatre actress. A former child fashion model and in several Broadway productions as Z...

Ray Milland as Stephen Tolliver Died 1986 · Neath, Glamorgan, Wales, UK Ray Milland (born Reginald Alfred John Truscott-Jones or Alfred Reginald Jones; 3 January 1907 – 10 March 1986) was a Welsh actor and director. He is best remembered for his Academy Award–winning port...

John Wayne as Captain Jack Stuart Died 1979 · Winterset, Iowa, USA Marion Mitchell Morrison (born Marion Robert Morrison) (May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), known professionally as John Wayne and nicknamed Duke, was an American actor and filmmaker. An Academy Award-winn...

Raymond Massey as King Cutler Died 1983 · Toronto, Ontario, Canada Raymond Hart Massey (August 30, 1896 – July 29, 1983) was a Canadian actor known for his commanding stage-trained voice. For his lead role in Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940), Massey was nominated for t...

Robert Preston as Dan Cutler Died 1987 · Newton Highlands, Massachusetts, USA Robert Preston (June 8, 1918 – March 21, 1987) was an American stage and film actor and singer, best known for his collaboration with composer Meredith Willson and originating the role of Professor Ha...

Director Cecil B. DeMille

Cast Paulette Goddard, Ray Milland, John Wayne, Raymond Massey, Robert Preston, Lynne Overman, Susan Hayward, Charles Bickford, Walter Hampden, Louise Beavers

John Chard 7/10 May 16, 2020

Ripping Yarns!

Reap the Wild Wind is directed by Cecil B. DeMille and is adapted collectively to screenplay by Alan Le May, Charles Bennett and Jesse Lasky Jr. from a Saturday Evening Post story written by Thelma Strabel. It stars John Wayne, Ray Milland, Paulette Goddard, Raymond Massey, Robert Preston, Susan Hayward and Lynne Overman. Music is by Victor Young and cinematography is shared between Victor Milner and William V. Skall.

The Florida Keys in the 1840s, hurricanes are rife and the salvagers of Key West rush to the frail schooners to claim salvage rights...

Whilst not up with the best of DeMille's epics, this is however a joyous romp of a high seas adventure. A top notch cast line up for some period flavours that is unfurled in glorious over saturated Technicolor. We have a rocky love triangle, dastardly villains with dishonesty poring from every bead of sweat, sword play, fisticuffs, fogs and a giant squid! and it even has time to be a court room drama as well. In short it is a ripping sea faring yarn.

The budget was considerable and DeMille ensures it was lavishly spent, and thus the pic was a box office winner and an Academy Award Winner for special effects. It's a touch too long, and gets a little bogged down in the mid-section, but entering the home straight it pulls itself back up and ends briskly, with Duke Wayne splendidly rounding off an interesting characterisation. 7/10

CinemaSerf 6/10 Jun 26, 2022

The last twenty minutes or so go some way to redeeming this otherwise rather meandering romantic drama that has a cast that looks good on paper but is much less effective on screen. John Wayne ("Jack Stuart") is the captain who has just lost his ship after it was wrecked on a dangerous reef by men allegedly working for Raymond Massey ("King Cutler"). His boss Walter Hampden ("Commodore Devereaux") is less than impressed and Duke is demoted and ordered to take Ray Milland ("Tolliver") to Key West. Meantime, the feisty Paulette Goddard ("Loxi") who is all but engaged to "Stuart" arrives on the scene and straight onto Milland's radar... Now Wayne has got to prove his ship was deliberately sunk and keep his girl from his duplicitous rival. The story is pretty procedural and lame, to be honest - Goddard brings some charm to the film, but Milland (and his ventriloquist doggy act) gets a bit wearisome after a while and neither Wayne nor the usually sinister Massey are anywhere near their best. It features some good underwater antics towards the conclusion but the story is just a bit too weak and predictable. Colourful, though...and it's got a monkey!