SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?
View MoreSelf-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.
A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.
View MoreThe movie really just wants to entertain people.
Half of a good movie. John Wayne plays a sea captain set adrift on the waters after a falling out with natives on an island in the East Indies; he's soon picked up by another ship but butts heads (in a gentlemanly fashion) with that captain, a well-respected shipping magnate, especially after they return to the native island and both men fall in love with a beautiful white girl. Mostly told (rather unnecessarily) in flashback, there are two treasure dives--the first for pearls and then for gold--yet by the time we get around to the second pillage, all the wind has gone out of this movie's sails. At a certain point passed the first hour, the narrative flashes seven years ahead into the future--and then proceeds for more time!--leaving viewers far behind. Gail Russell is indeed lovely as the woman who comes between the two ego-fed men, but her role turns the film from a sea-faring adventure story into a star-crossed, doomed-lovers romance, and the results are all wet. The Duke is fun wrestling with an octopus, saving a native boy from the piercing clamp of a giant clam, or mouthing off to whomever is in charge; he's at his most robust and handsome here, but his performance doesn't bolster the wayward plotting and his final scene is a real let-down. ** from ****
View MoreWe're in the 1860s somewhere in the Pacific. John Wayne is looking for riches surrounded by natives, Gail Russell, Luther Adler and a very young Gig Young.The picture should have been in color for starters. Wouldn't you really like to see The "Red" Witch of a boat?The story is one of revenge between Luther Adler, a vicious, cunning individual who stole Gale Russell from the clutches of Wayne.To get revenge, Wayne sunk Adler's Red Witch boat and Adler shall reciprocate as the film goes on.Miss Russell must have thought that she was Merle Oberon in the way that she attempted to play her death scene similar to Oberon's "Wuthering Heights." The uneven writing doesn't help one bit.Wayne joining Miss Russell in death at the end while searching for gold at the bottom of the sea is Hollywood mush.This film needs to be waked.
View MoreThis is kind of out-of-way stuff for the duke, closest he got to again in "Reap the wild wind". It is basically a Wuthering Heights of the Southern Seas, with a very young and slim Wayne being pulled into a story of intrigue and lost love by the most beautiful Gail Russell. Great pity that her early death prevented her from rising to true stardom, but she truly holds her own next to the Duke in this strange, patchwork story of a true love. If you can hold of it, view it and enjoy it. And it once again convinces me, that John Wayne could pull off almost everything convincingly, giving tribute to him being a real quality actor after all.
View MoreEssentially a "Wuthering Heights" on the high seas, this occasionally confusing film is really a piecing together of two previous films: The 1939 version of the Bronte Classic, and the 1942 Cecil B. DeMille actioner, "Reap the Wild Wind." Scenes from both of these films have been lifted whole from the originals and welded into the flimsy supporting latticework of its plot. What weaknesses the film has, however, are more than made up by the vividness of the characterizations, a powerful romance, and one of the best portrayals of a grudging symbiotic relationship in cinema.The plot revolves around three characters, Ralls (John Wayne), ship's captain with a dark and dangerous side, Mayrant Sidneye (Luther Adler), an ubber-wealthy shipping magnate, and the beautiful Angelique (Gail Russell)--focal point for the romance. (There is a fourth "main" character, Sam, played by Gig Young, but he serves only as observer and narrator.) Ralls and Sidneye have a curious, bitter rivalry. Clearly, these men have a long history between them--a history which goes back much farther, and is much more complex than can be explained by their competition for Angelique's affections. Indeed, it is the relationship between these two men that powers this movie along, much more than the wonderfully played romance. These men hate and despise one another, yet there is clearly a grudging respect between them--and something more. Here are two men whose very existence and reason for being depends on the other. Every move they make is calculated as to its effect on their adversary. Though their mutual hatred extends well into the murderous range, neither would ever conceive of killing the other. So tied up in each other's fate are they that they would do just as well to kill themselves.**SPOILERS** The doomed romance plays out between the three principles much as it does in the aforementioned '39 film "Wuthering Heights," complete with a virtual duplication of the dying scene--in this case with Angelique in Ralls' arms, looking out to the sea (instead of the heather), with Sidneye, the husband, looking helplessly on. That this is a virtual copy of the love story from the earlier film does not detract much from its power, as these three actors are at their riveting best, almost making us forget the Olivier/Oberon/Niven flimization. Luther Adler is terrific in his perhaps finest role. He makes his obsession with Ralls palpable, both his hatred and respect seem to ooze from his pores in equal measure. Though his character is confined to a wheelchair, his power is never doubted, making him every bit the match for his more physically imposing rival. Gail Russell is an actress whose flame died out too quickly. Here she gives us one of her two best performances, the other being in "Angel and the Badman" from the year before which also starred John Wayne. Though the main focus is on the two male characters, her luminous, fragile Angelique gives the viewer a sympathetic refuge from the often ruthless machinations of Ralls and Sidneye.Undeniably, John Wayne gives one of his best--and most complex-- performances here. That he was an excellent actor should be undisputed, though too often he found himself in roles where he played one-dimensional characters that would have bored except for his considerable charisma. Here, his character is alternately charming and broodingly malevolent, given to alcohol fueled bouts of violence and self-loathing, his motivations are often morally ambiguous. Wayne hits all of these notes with perfect pitch, and does something many actors would not have been able to accomplish--he makes us care about this often unlikable personality through the sheer force of his remarkable screen presence. It is this performance, most of all, that keeps "The Red Witch" from sinking under the bleak, sometimes oppressive weight of its plot.
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