The Hurricane
Directed by John Ford
Written by Dudley Nichols and Oliver H.P. Garrett from a novel by Charles Nordoff and James Norman Hall
1937/US
The Samuel Goldwyn Company
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental
DeLaage: My dear doctor, I’m ready to give my wife and my friends anything I own in the world except my sense of honor and duty.
Dr. Kersaint: A sense of honor in the South Seas is about as useful and often as silly as a silk hat in a hurricane.
The best part of this solid John Ford entry is the hurricane. Second best is the stellar cast.
The story takes place in French Polynesia. Terangi (Jon Hall) is the most well-loved man on his island. He has an idyllic romance with Marama (Dorothy Lamour) which leads to their marriage early in the film.
Jon is first mate on a clipper that sails between the islands. On shore leave in Tahiti, he breaks the jaw of white man who hit him first and was ejecting Polynesians from a saloon. This lands him in jail for a six month term. Due to his many escape attempts he is separated from Dorothy and the daughter he has never seen for eight years. Finally he makes an escape good only to have to fight a killer hurricane. With Raymond Massey as the inflexible governor of the island, Mary Astor as his compassionate wife, John Carradine as a sadistic jailer, Thomas Mitchell as a sympathetic doctor, and C. Aubrey Smith as a saintly priest.
Always good to catch up on my unseen John Ford filmography. This has a fabulous cast and I enjoyed it greatly.
The film won the Oscar for Best Sound, Recording. It was nominated for Best Supporting Actor (Mitchell) and Best Music, Score.
