The Long Voyage Home

The Long Voyage Home is a 1940 American drama film directed by John Ford. It stars John Wayne, Thomas Mitchell and Ian Hunter. It features Barry Fitzgerald, Wilfrid Lawson, John Qualen, Mildred Natwick, and Ward Bond, among others. The film was adapted by Dudley Nichols from the plays The Moon of the Caribbees, In the Zone, Bound East for Cardiff, and The Long Voyage Home by Eugene O'Neill. The original plays by Eugene O'Neill were written around the time of World War I and were among his earlier plays. Ford set the story for the motion picture, however, during the early days of World War II. While not one of Ford's best-known works, The Long Voyage Home continues to be well received. Film critics and scholars have noted Gregg Toland's distinctive cinematography, which serves as a precursor of the film noir aesthetic and hinted at his work for Orson Welles' film Citizen Kane (1941). Plot A British tramp steamer named the SS Glencairn is on the long voyage home from the West Indies to Baltimore, and then to England during World War II. The crew is a motley, fun-loving, hard-drinking lot. Among them is their consensus leader, a middle-aged Irishman named Driscoll; a young Swedish ex-farmer, Ole Olsen; a spiteful steward nicknamed Cocky; a brooding Lord Jim-like Englishman, Smitty; and a burly, thoroughly dependable bruiser, Davis. On a sultry night in a port in the West Indies, the crew has been confined to the ship by order of the captain, but Drisk has arranged to import a boatload of local ladies. The crew carouse until a drunken brawl breaks out and the ladies are ordered off the ship and denied any of their promised compensation. The next day the ship sails to pick up its cargo for its return trip to England. When the crew discovers that the cargo is high explosives, they rebel, but are easily cowed into submission by the captain and the ship sails.