‘Northwest Passage’ — Book 1, Roger’s Rangers (1940)

‘Northwest Passage’ — Book 1, Roger’s Rangers
Directed by King Vidor
Written by Lawrence Stallings and Talbot Jennings from a novel by Kenneth Roberts
1940/USA
Loew’s/Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
First viewing/Streaming on Amazon Instant Video

[box] Maj. Robert Rogers: Now w’re under orders to wipe out this town, so see that you kill every fighting Indian – kill ’em quick and kill ’em dead, and for Heaven’s sake, don’t kill any of our own Indians and don’t kill any of the white captives. Our own Indians will have white crosses on their backs, so keep your eyes open. Don’t make any mistakes.[/box]

This is well-made and Spencer Tracy is excellent as usual but ultimately it was not for me.

The setting is on the frontier of colonial America.  Langdon Towne (Robert Young) is an outspoken would-be painter who gets on the wrong side of the powers that be.  ‘Hunk’ Marriner (Walter Brennan) is his sidekick and also in trouble for speaking his mind.  The two need to leave town quick and are finagled by Maj. Robert Rogers (Spencer Tracy) into joining up with his company of Indian fighters in the French and Indian Wars.

The rest of the story covers the adventures of Rogers’ Rangers in combat and as they slowly starve on the long road back to civilization.  At the very end of the movie, Rogers is tasked to take his men on an exploratory mission to look for the Northwest Passage.  That is the only time it comes up in the film.  With Ruth Hussey as Langdon’s sweetheart.

I’m just not too keen on this “glorious battle” manly sort of war story.  ‘Northwest Passage’ is also firmly in the “Indians are savages” camp which doesn’t help.

The film was nominated for an Academy Award in the category of Best Color Cinematography.

Trailer