NORTHWEST PASSAGE: Blu-ray (MGM, 1940) Warner Archive

In an age where the word ‘super-colossus’ defined American picture-making, the year 1939 remains a watershed, still regarded by many as ‘the greatest’ year for generating masterpieces. It was also the year, King Vidor set out to bring Kenneth Roberts’ novel, Northwest Passage to the big screen. To put things into perspective, the resultant epic would rival the 1926 silent Ben-Hur in scope and cost. At some point in its aegis, MGM’s raja, Louis B. Mayer, balked at the ambitious budget. Even with a whopping $2,687,000 at his disposal (again, for context, Selznick’s Gone with the Wind cost $3.9 million to will into prominence), it would take Vidor from the summer of ’39 to the frigid February of the following year to make good on his plan. In the interim, much about the picture changed, or rather, stayed the same to truly make it an all-around winner. Billed with the subtitle, ‘Book I: Roger’s Rangers’, the picture’s failure to turn a profit at the box office (its exorbitant costs ensured it lost almost $850,000), all but guaranteed there would be no ‘Book II’. The greater oddity is Roger’s discovery of a northwest passage through North America does not take place until Book II, and therefore is not actually a part of this movie’s plot. Set in 1759, photographed on location in central Idaho throughout 1939 and ‘40, near Payette Lake and the city of McCall (a rarity in those days), and, lensed in glorious 3-strip Technicolor (costly, to say the least), Northwest Passage actually recalls the real-life St. Francis Raid by Rogers' Rangers, thoroughly embellished for the screen by writers, Laurence Stallings and Talbot Jennings. Top-billed Spencer Tracy, dons the coon-skin cap as the intrepid, Robert Rogers, plotting his rather ruthless attack on the Abenaki village during the Seven Years' War to avenge Indian attacks on British settlers.

Viewing Northwest Passage today, it is impossible to see it for its virtues without first, to acknowledge its vices. The Stalling/Jennings’ screenplay is a lumbering mess. Even at 125-minutes, the picture just seems about twice as long with half the staying power. Second, Spencer Tracy is an ill fit as the towering and woodsy man of action in buck-skin with rifle in tow. There is just something about Tracy that is too-too cosmopolitan to be believed here. Moreover, Tracy’s screen presence is not enough to eclipse the rather irreprehensible and cutthroat tenor of the character. Robert Rogers burns a sleepy Indian village in the dead of night, killing many without a fair fight. Third, even by the standards of its own generation, the depiction of the Abenaki was deemed by many a critic as racially insensitive. Finally, while William V. Skall’s cinematography was Oscar-nominated (losing out to The Thief of Bagdad), it all but dwarfs everything else, especially the melodrama, supposedly at the crux of this story.

Rumor has it, Vidor was never solid with the story and, at intervals, allowed at least twelve other writers to interject into the process of reshaping the narrative. There’s an old adage that ought to have adhered to here; something about too many cooks spoiling the broth. At one point, Vidor sought the novelist’s participation. Roberts willingly complied, but put forth the opinion the movie should tell the whole story of his book, not just the first half. While Vidor was somewhat enthusiastic for MGM to have its own Technicolor epic on par with Selznick’s multi-Oscar-winning magnum opus, Mayer was resistant to the high cost of seeing it through. To placate Robert’s concerns, audiences would be disappointed with seeing only half his story come to life, Mayer agreed to have the movie subtitled, Book One: Rogers' Rangers. Roberts was bitterly disappointed with this compromise. Thus, when Vidor pitched for the author to adapt ‘the second half’ of his novel as a sequel, Roberts declined to partake of the exercise. As for the studio; owing to losses on the first movie, Mayer absolutely refused to create a follow-up. Nearly 2 decades later, MGM took a second stab at adapting Roberts’ novel; this time, as a serialized television drama. It briefly ran from 1958 to 1959, with Keith Larsen as Robert Rogers and Buddy Ebsen as his sidekick, Hunk Marriner.

Plot wise:  it’s 1759. After his expulsion from Harvard University, amiable ship rigger, Langdon Towne (Robert Young) returns to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Although disheartened, Towne’s family harbors a great regard for him, as does Elizabeth Browne (Ruth Hussey) the daughter of a notable clergyman (Lewis Hector), who is ‘less than’ enthusiastic about his daughter’s taste in men. Over drinks at the local tavern, Towne and his buddy, Sam Livermore (Lester Matthews) disparage the King’s attorney, Wiseman Clagett (Montagu Love), and the Native American agent, Sir William Johnson, quite unaware Clagett has overheard everything from an adjacent room. Facing arrest, Towne wards off incarceration with the aid of local woodsman, Hunk Marriner (Buddy Ebsen). Retreating westward, Towne and Marriner inadvertently help Major Robert Rogers (Spencer Tracy), commander of Rogers' Rangers. In need of Towne's map-making skills, Rogers recruits both men for his latest expedition to annihilate the hostile Abenakis tribe and the northern outpost of St. Francis. Rogers's troop row northward on Lake Champlain. Alas, several of his men are injured in an ambush with Mohawk scouts. Suspecting treason, Rogers sends the wounded back to Crown Point, along with the disloyal Mohawks provided him by Johnson. Now, his depleted forces march onward, only to have their boats and supplies confiscated by the French. To compensate, Rogers sends an injured officer back to Fort Crown Point, requesting fresh supplies sent to old Fort Wentworth to refurbish his needs.

Rogers successfully crosses the river into St. Francis. In a daring night raid, Rogers and his forces set fire to the Abenakis’ outpost, cutting them off from retreat. Discovering only scant rations of parched corn to replenish their provisions, Marriner also learns Towne has been shot in the abdomen. Retreating to Wentworth, though pursued by hostile French and Indian forces, Rogers’ objective now is to reach Lake Memphremagog, with wounded Towne bringing up the rear. The grueling trek across this unforgiving wilderness takes its toll. Rogers’ plans are foiled when his remaining loyalists vote to split into four parties to hunt for food instead. Alas, two detachments are ambushed by the French, leaving many dead. Brutalized and bloodied, though unbowed, Rogers and fifty men, a scant contingent of what was once his proud outfit, finally reach the fort, only to find it abandoned. After some initial consternation, Rogers hears the fifes and drums of the advancing British relief column who, upon arrival, honor Rogers and his troop for their fortitude. In Portsmouth, Towne is reunited with Elizabeth. Rogers is given a new assignment: to seek the northwest passage. In his impassioned address to his men, Rogers refers to a little-known outpost called ‘Detroit’. Elizabeth informs Rogers she and Towne are returning to London where she has great aspirations for her soon-to-be-husband to become a great painter. Recognizing their parting of the way, Rogers wishes the happy couple well before solitarily marching into the sunset.

Northwest Passage is a movie of its time, rather than a classic for all-time.  King Vidor, beloved in the silent age of American cinema, did not fare so well with the coming of sound. Indeed, his stylings owe much to the age where words were inconsequential and storytelling hailed from a highly theatrical execution of thoughts and ideas conveyed through movement. Ironically, in the age of the ‘talkies’, Vidor’s filmic output had very little to say, or rather, much to reveal in his adherence to the dawning of that art and craft in picture-making. Vidor’s approach did not mature with the medium so much as it continued to hark back to its earliest epoch which Vidor undeniable found very sweet and familiar. Northwest Passage marks Vidor’s second attempt at immortality under a new 5-picture deal at MGM, after his previous tenure with Samuel Goldwyn turned to chalk.  Ostensibly, Vidor was an artist. Alas, Metro’s assembly line approach was out of step with Vidor’s more clear-eyed judgment on how to create ‘art for art’s sake’. As a result, the pictures Vidor aspired to make, like 1944’s National Velvet and 1946’s The Yearling were handed off to other directors Mayer felt were ‘better suited’ to bring the studio a hit. Perhaps, even more tragic for Vidor’s tenure at MGM, was Mayer’s general disregard beyond Vidor’s technical expertise. As example, Vidor was permitted to shoot inserts and occasionally whole sequences for such classics like The Wizard of Oz (1939), but without ever receiving the credit he justly deserved.

Northwest Passage ought to have been Vidor’s grand opportunity to prove to Mayer he could helm a big-budgeted event in costly Technicolor, one he was expected to balance the grand spectacle against the darker aspects of the narrative. Reflecting on this, Vidor does acquit himself rather nicely of the staging of the retaliatory attacks that push Rogers and his men to the brink of anthropophagy and insanity. Interestingly, the level of violence depicted herein also foreshadows the war-time cycle of noir/thrillers yet to follow, rather than hark back to the glamor gala days of Hollywood just prior to Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland.  Vidor began shooting Northwest Passage in the summer of 1939, just weeks before the powder keg of European conflict sparked frenzied isolationist debates on the U.S. House and Senate floors. And Northwest Passage can be regarded for influencing the spate of war-time/war-themed actioners soon to become Hollywood’s bread and butter, showing small contingencies of men locked in uncertain valor, and set against seemingly insurmountable odds. Vidor’s faith in Spencer Tracy remained unabated throughout the shoot. Indeed, he held to the belief Tracy had never been better in the movies than as the Teutonic warrior in Northwest Passage. Vidor’s ability to create fluidity in his master shots on location, particularly in lieu of the fact each of the two Technicolor cameras employed to lens these sequences weighed in excess of 800 lbs., is impressive. And to be sure, Northwest Passage justly received an Oscar nod for its cinematography. But in the end, it was not enough to carry the picture across the threshold into certifiable box office gold, nor, arguably, to make it an all-time contender for movieland greatness.

The Warner Archive (WAC) unleashes Northwest Passage in a stunningly handsome Blu-ray, culled from original cellulose nitrate film stocks. Technical wizardry, light-years younger than the picture’s 70+ vintage have allowed the studio to recombine the 3-Technicolor records for the purest reproduction of the movie since its theatrical debut. And the results are spectacular beyond expectations. Colors pop. There is a razor-sharp clarity that reveals staggering amounts of fine detail from top to bottom and side-to-side. Fine detail in hair, clothing and background information is monumentally satisfying.  Contrast is uniformly excellent. A light smattering of film grain looks indigenous to its source. This is a breathtaking and peerless image with no complaints. The 2.0 audio is wonderfully nuanced with kudos to MGM’s resident composer extraordinaire, Herbert Stothart for his beautiful score. No noteworthy extras here: Northward, Ho! Is a B&W promo, deftly directed by Harry Loud. There’s also a theatrical trailer on tap. Bottom line: with so much going for it, Northwest Passage ought to have been a much better movie than it actually is. See it for what it’s worth: an incredibly gorgeous Technicolor event, splashy in its hues, but lethally dull in its execution as an adventure yarn.

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

3

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

1