Monday 16 September 2013

The Long Voyage Home (1940)



Dir.: John Ford
Plot: A crew of merchant sailors try to stay sane and alive in dangerous waters, while personal catastrophe plagues their ranks.

The Long Voyage Home may sound like pleasantly forgettable studio fare – a troop of rowdy merchant sailors played by a familiar array of folksy character actors and a plot revolving around suspected spies, enemy-infested waters and the occasional mass brawl. In reality, it strives for a higher plane, thanks to original author Eugene O’Neill’s poignant examination of the loneliness of the seafaring life and the inner demons that drive a man to seek such an existence and prevent him from leaving it.