Only one yr after Stagecoach, John Ford and John Wayne reteamed for an underappreciated gem that now boasts a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, The Lengthy Voyage Residence. Altogether, Ford and Wayne collaborated on 14 films, with their first being 1939’s Stagecoach, the now-iconic movie that set the stage for Wayne’s takeover of the Western style.
Their partnership continued on-and-off for years, with it actually choosing up in 1948 once they made two nice Westerns in a single yr, Fort Apache and 3 Godfathers, thus setting in movement a string of nice Ford-Wayne collaborations that lasted via the Nineteen Fifties and past.
The movies from this era of their respective careers – plus Stagecoach – earn the lion’s share of the eye relating to their shared filmography. Consequently, one specific contribution to cinema usually goes unnoticed.
Lengthy Voyage Residence Was A Field Workplace Failure, However A Strong Outing From John Wayne & John Ford
A yr later, John Ford directed The Lengthy Voyage Residence, a drama a couple of group of individuals aboard a British ship on the onset of World Conflict II. The movie dealt the trials and emotional struggles the passengers and crew skilled collectively whereas they awaited their return to their properties.
Within the movie, John Wayne performed Ole, a younger Swedish man and one of many passengers on the vessel. Though he has prime billing right here, the true lead is Thomas Mitchell’s Driscoll, who involves Ole’s rescue in The Lengthy Voyage Residence’s climax when individuals from one other ship attempt to seize him for their very own functions.
The Lengthy Voyage Residence was in the end mild on motion and will have been a disappointment for these hoping for one thing extra akin to Stagecoach from Ford and Wayne. However what it lacked in motion it made up for in worthwhile character drama, together with a stable efficiency from Wayne, who portrayed a likable, good-natured man with a pet parrot.
Sadly, The Lengthy Voyage Residence bombed on the field workplace. Nonetheless, it did fare properly with critics, and even boasted a number of Oscar nominations, together with one for Finest Image. That is per its present status, provided that it sports activities a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Lengthy Voyage Residence Was An Early Appearing Problem For John Wayne
In response to John Wayne: The Life and the Legend by Scott Eyman, the calls for of enjoying Ole in The Lengthy Voyage Residence marked a major problem for Wayne as an actor. Firstly, Ole was Swedish, and this prompted Wayne to hunt out teaching on the dialect.
However Wayne’s issues for taking part in Ole went deeper than the character’s Swedish id; Eyman argues that at the moment, Wayne had settled on a “public technique” of pretending that he did not see himself as an actual actor. That made sense, contemplating that the cowboys he performed all through the Thirties weren’t essentially deep, well-developed characters.
However Ole, as Eyman notes within the e-book, was a somewhat “delicate” function, and thus referred to as for a extra emotional efficiency from Wayne. The Lengthy Voyage Residence took him out of his consolation zone, and later turned one in every of a number of films to supply one thing a bit completely different from “the Duke.“
- Launch Date
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November 16, 1940
- Runtime
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105 minutes
- Director
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John Ford
- Writers
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Dudley Nichols, Eugene O’Neill
- Producers
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Walter Wanger