Reap the Wild Wind (1942)

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

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!