The Long Voyage Home, 1940 Grade - B

Director: John Ford
Awards: Nominated for multiple academy awards
Cast: John Wayne;Thomas Mitchell; Ian Hunter; Barry Fitzgerald; Wilfrid Lawson; John Qualen; Mildred Natwick; Ward Bond; Arthur Shileds; Joe Sawyer; JM Kerrigan; Rafaela Ottiano

 

sez says-- I am not a John Wayne fan-- and thus I was reluctant to watch this, figuring he would play a prominent role, and that would annoy me.  But neither was the case. His role is one of many characters, not more or less important than any other..and he does a fine job being a young Swed trying to get home. Eugene O'Neill wrote this--and it is no doubt his writing that makes this better than the average story.  John Ford directed it. So it is visually wonderful: lots of stark black & white and shadows.  Depicting life on the sea during war time --  and it is about an effort to get explosives to the allies (before  the USA--was in the war). It thus a story that was used to  create concern for helping out in the war effort.   The life of individual men at sea is seen as raw and rough and exploited: It is a life most of us would want to escape--yet men who take to this life seldom do escape. Or so says the story.  Well done -- maybe even a masterpiece of sorts. (Grade B)