Reap the Wild Wind (1942)
If after the first hour of this romantic melodrama featuring socialite tea parties, a couple of bland fist fights and Ray Milland's ventriloquism act with his dog you'd said that the second half would see the entire cast charged with wrecking ships, piracy and murder before John Wayne gets killed by a giant squid in the hull of a wrecked ship then i'd have thought you were crazy.
So there you go.
I'd only seen this once previously and it was so long ago i'd forgotten all about it, especially that dramatic final third. A fine cast of Wayne, Milland, Paulette Goddard (Absolutely everything that happens in this film is her fault), Robert Preston, Susan Hayward and Raymond Massey keep the lengthy talky early scenes more than watchable.
Directed by Cecil B. DeMille, the legend behind the camera of Cleopatra, Samson and Delilah and The Ten Commandments, this is a Technicolor epic even if it isn't quite in the same league as those three.
This definitely needs me to upgrade to Blu-ray.
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