Northwest Passage (Blu-ray Review)
Director
King VidorRelease Date(s)
1940 (August 13, 2024)Studio(s)
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Warner Archive Collection)- Film/Program Grade: B+
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: B-
Review
Northwest Passage is based on the actual events as recounted by Kenneth Roberts in the first part of his 1936 novel of that name. Set during the French and Indian Wars in Colonial America, the film focuses on a 1759 event, when the British ordered an American unit known as Rogers’ Rangers to destroy the Abenaki Indian settlement of Saint-Francis in Quebec that had been the base for raids on British settlements.
Langdon Towne (Robert Young, The Enchanted Cottage) has been expelled from Harvard, crushing his chances of becoming a pastor. Now back at home in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, he tells his fiancee, Elizabeth (Ruth Hussey, The Philadelphia Story) that he wishes to be a professional artist. Elizabeth’s prosperous father (Louis Hector, TV’s Tales of Tomorrow) withdraws his permission for them to marry because an artist’s prospects for supporting her properly aren’t good enough.
At a tavern later, Langdon and his buddy Hunk Marriner (Walter Brennan, The Westerner) are overheard disparaging the crooked but wealthy and well-connected English official Clagett (Montagu Love, The Mark of Zorro). To avoid arrest, Langdon and Hunk flee up Lake Champlain, trying to reach Albany. On the way, they meet Major Rogers (Spencer Tracy, Captains Courageous), head of what today would be called a special forces unit. Rogers learns of Langdon’s ability to draw accurate maps, gets them drunk and enlists them in his Rangers.
Their mission is dangerous and Rogers doesn’t trust his Mohawk guides not to deliver the Rangers into the hands of the French. Instead of taking the shorter route recommended by the Mohawks, Rogers relies on Langdon’s maps to guide his men on a circuitous route that the French wouldn’t anticipate. The trek takes the Rangers first in whale boats upriver, then on foot through swamps and over mountains. At one point, the strongest of the men make a human chain across a river’s raging rapids so the whole company can reach the other side. On the long journey to accomplish their mission, they suffer hunger, mental breakdowns, and a huge toll of human loss.
Northwest Passage is unusual because of its extensive outdoor filming. At a time when most major movies were shot at studios, this one was filmed at locations in central Idaho near Payette Lake and the city of McCall. It was MGM’s most expensive film since Ben-Hur (1926). The Technicolor photography is spectacular and reflects the unspoiled wilderness of 18th-century North America. The cast of extras is huge, with scores of Rangers, troops of British soldiers, and hundreds hostile Indians. The scope of the film is vast and must have been truly impressive to audiences during its original theatrical run.
Principal stars Tracy and Young take on roles that require strenuous action, sloshing through muddy terrain, climbing mountains, and dragging heavy whale boats over land. Tracy never quite convinces as a leader who can keep his men in line while they endure dire conditions, but his star power does a lot to transfer his own charisma to that of Rogers. Young’s mild-mannered vibe is just right for the character of Langdon, who has no experience as a fighter and no wish to be one but carries on heroically, forging ahead, not complaining, and becoming a team player. In an example of contemporary Hollywood creeping into the screenplay, when Langdon is badly wounded, a pep talk by Rogers is all it takes to make him continue with the help of a crutch and the support of a woman and an Indian child. Not even Young could make this scene ring true.
Always good for comic relief is Walter Brennan as Langdon’s pal Huck. To enhance his performances as the grizzled sidekick, Brennan would often play roles without his false teeth. He did so in this film, adding verisimilitude to his portrayal of a tippling rascal with a knack for getting into trouble. When we first see him, Huck is bound in the stocks, partly for drunkenness but mostly for publicly denouncing the crooked English official. Even though he never intended to be a Ranger, Huck rises to the occasion and looks after Langdon, a young man more accustomed to books than battles with wilderness and warriors.
For all its focus on adventure, the film includes dialogue about gruesome massacres, scalpings, and the even more horrific tortures the Indian warriors inflict on the survivors. The descriptions of these atrocities are surprisingly detailed and make clear that being captured would be infinitely worse than being killed. There’s racist dialogue and a generally condescending attitude toward Indians, even the Mohawks who are allies. Rogers never really trusts them. This overt racism was unfortunately typical of the period, but it does stand out more now than it would have in 1940, when the picture was released.
MGM originally planned a sequel. Spencer Tracy recalled the filming as a miserable experience, having to spend days partially submerged in freezing water, battling mosquitoes, and enduring other terrible location conditions. Director King Vidor, Tracy notes, was a harsh, demanding taskmaster, and the actor vowed never to work with him again. The film was very popular with audiences, but because it cost so much, it never made a profit. So Tracy’s unwillingness to put himself into similar circumstances with a director he had come to hate, the exorbitant expense, and the unimpressive box office results of Northwest Passage killed the possibility of a sequel.
Northwest Passage was shot by directors of photography William V. Shall and Sidney Wagner on 35 mm film in Technicolor with spherical lenses, and presented in the aspect ratio of 1.37:1. The Blu-ray features a 2024 HD master taken from a 4K scan of original nitrate camera negatives. Clarity is outstanding. The color photography, with its broad palette, is one of the film’s major appeals. Deeply saturated greens, brilliant blues, and the bright red and gold of the British soldiers’ uniforms really pop. The costumes of the Rangers feature a range of earthy tones. The Portsmouth town square created on MGM’s backlot reflects impressive production design. Costumed extras, horse and buggy, period stagecoach, marching British soldiers, and ladies in long dresses suggest the time period.
The soundtrack is English 2.0 mono DTS-HD Master Audio. English SDH subtitles are an option. Dialogue is clear and distinct. Sound effects include men sloshing through water, buzzing mosquitoes, raging river rapids, gunfire, a cannon shot, boats being dragged across dry land, horses’ hooves, and ambient forest noises. The score by Herbert Stothart adds excitement to many scenes and emphasizes the long trek the Rangers must make to get to their destination.
Bonus materials on the Blu-ray release from the Warner Archive Collection include the following:
- Northward, Ho! (9:25)
- Original Theatrical Trailer (2:01)
Northward, Ho! – This MGM “Miniature” featurette opens with a self-congratulatory look back at the studio’s epic productions Marie Antoinette, The Good Earth, Trader Horn, and San Francisco as clips from those movies are shown. Behind-the-scenes footage shows the Northwest Passage crew lugging heavy equipment, including 600-pound Technicolor cameras, to the Idaho location, clearing trees to build the Abenaki village, and constructing the large outdoor set. One scene shows Rogers’ Rangers marching as a camera crew and huge klieg lights on a dolly follow them on track laid just for this sequence to provide a smooth shot.
Northwest Passage is a grand adventure movie in the style of Last of the Mohicans, The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Charge of the Light Brigade. Though it may be a bit too long, it delivers well-staged action sequences, glorious scenery, and solid performances. It deals with actual events, and is an example of the wealth of resources MGM was able to command at the peak of its dominance as Hollywood’s preeminent studio.
- Dennis Seuling