THE LONG VOYAGE HOME (Walter Wanger 1940) Warner Home Video

Based on Eugene O’Neill’s stagecraft, John Ford’s The Long Voyage Home (1940) is a sentimental, lusty and robust send-up to the harrowing, isolated and often lonely lives of sailors in peril on the open sea. Scripted by long-time collaborator, Dudley Nichols, the movie is both an evocative and colorful celebration of that rogue’s existence and a vivid condemnation of the cruel circumstances that render men as homeless nomads. Nichols updates the material ever so slightly for the more immediate tone of WWII – adding several well-paced scenes of conflict into what is essential an introspective melodrama with real heart and tough guts. Ford stocks his fictional vessel, the freighter - S.S. Glencairn, with a stellar roster of Hollywood’s finest character actors, including Thomas Mitchell as the fiery Aloysius Driscoll, Ward Bond (Yank), Barry Fitzgerald (gregarious, Cocky), Ian Hunter (aloof, Smitty) and Arthur Shields (Donkeyman). As his star, Ford alumni, John Wayne headlines as newbie, Ole Olson.  Given that it’s Ford and Wayne, we already know that we are in for a hell of a good time. But Wayne gives what can only be described as one or two of his very best performances, understated, genuine and pure. Meticulously crafted with evocative deep-focus camera work from cinematographer, Gregg Toland, the stark beauty of these open water takes center stage. Ford is giving us a tome as much as he is an entertainment. The whole enterprise moves along with a sort of lyrical hypnosis and affinity for fine art, perfectly to compliment the performances.  

The tale opens with the Glencairn, helmed by its benevolent captain (Wilfred Lawson). The ship is docked off the coast of a tropical island where native women sell themselves for a bit of sailor’s pay. Driscoll smuggles a small armada of babes and booze aboard. But the night’s festivities turn into a brawl and the Captain ejects his visitors without remuneration. At port, the Glencairn is loaded down with dynamite on route to England to help in the war effort. On its second night out, a terrible storm threatens to toss the entire shipment overboard. Yank does his level best to protect the cargo, is swamped by mammoth swells and suffers a punctured lung, dying the next evening. Later, Driscoll and another crew member, Axel (John Quelan), employing their unfounded principles and misguided deduction, begin to suspect Smitty as a Nazi spy. Brought to heel at the will of the crew, Driscoll discovers love letters written to Smitty (whose actual name is Thomas Fenwick) by his wife, Elizabeth (Mary Carewe). The ship is attacked by Nazi bombers off the coast of England and Smitty is riddled in a hailstorm of bullets. His body is returned to Elizabeth once the ship docks at port.

On land, Axel is determined to see Ole goes home to his aged mother in Sweden. To this end, the men chip in and buy Ole his passage on a steamer. However, the group is thwarted in their attempt to see Ole off by Limehouse Crimp, Nick (J.M Kerrigan) who leads everyone into a night of drunken revelry inside a pub/brothel. Bar wench, Freda (Mildred Natwick) baits the naïve Ole with small talk while his drink is drugged. After he is made unconscious, two thugs from the Amera, a rival freighter, carry him off to their ship as slave labor. In the nick of time, Driscoll smells a rat and saves the day, but not before he is knocked unconscious by one of the crew and taken below as Ole’s replacement. The Amera sails away with Driscoll on board. Ole is packed off to Sweden and the remaining crew – having squandered their hard earnings on women and drink - returns to the Glencairn the following day for their next voyage where they discover that the Amera has been sunk by German torpedoes.

Richard Hageman’s poignant score has just the right touch of syrup to offset and augment Toland’s starkly beautiful and haunted images. Ford’s direction – arguably always on point – is particularly masterful on this outing. Mildly criticized as being ‘stage bound,’ The Long Voyage Home scores big in delivering genuine ballast to each of its characterizations. Wayne’s performance is, perhaps, the most misunderstood in the bunch. He hardly does anything heroic. And Wayne resists to give us the iconography we are used to seeing from him. So, Ford surrounds his young star with a rich tapestry of immediately identifiable old hams. The story reeks of bittersweet-ness and truth – a perilous tightrope to balance, but pulled taut and together as only a tale told by the publicly irascible, but privately sentimental Ford could in his prime. Expect a few unanticipated tears along the way. The Long Voyage Home is a picture of immense passion for sea-faring men; camaraderie shared, and lives set into motion with devastating consequences amidst all the good times to be had.  

Warner Home Video delivers an average DVD presentation. Though the B&W image can be nicely contrasted with a refined gray scale, at times the image seems a bit thick – with a sudden loss of fine detail and more than a hint of grain that is distracting from the stark beauty of Toland’s cinematography. On the whole, the image will not disappoint, but it is hardly as pristine as one might have hoped for. The audio is mono and adequately represented. Extras are limited to a theatrical trailer and a rather engaging short featurette on Ford and his fascination with the sea. Recommended.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

4.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

3

EXTRAS

1