Plantiana Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Limerculer A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Spikeopath Northwest Passage is directed by King Vidor and adapted to screenplay by Laurence Stallings and Talbot Jennings from the Kenneth Roberts novel of the same name. It stars Spencer Tracy, Robert Young and Walter Brennan. Music is by Herbert Stothart and cinematography by William V. Skall and Sidney Wagner."This is a story of our early America….of the century of conflict with French and Indians….when necessity made simple men, unknown to history, into giants in daring and endurance. It begins in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1759…." Hurrah! What with the film having a reputation as one of the greatest adventure films of all time, that opening salvo for Vidor's movie doubly whets the appetite.What follows is more a case of a visually great picture, dotted with action, that is more about actual heroes than heroic deeds. Certainly the first hour of the picture leans more towards the slow burn than anything raising the pulse. However, characters are well drawn by Vidor and his team, with quality performances to match from the leads, and when the action dose come, such as the excellent battle at the Abenaki village, they more than pay back the patience of the viewer. We need to be forgiving for the overtly racist fervour that permeates the plot, so instead just rejoice in men triumphing over many obstacles, both of the mind and the body. 7/10

Boba_Fett1138 This movie is definitely a good watch but it's also definitely not a movie that is without its disappointments. You can't really blame anyone involved with this movie for that, since this movie was a troubled production from pretty much the start on already, which is also the reason why the initially planned sequel never got made.It's a movie with an adventurous story but yet at the same time there is also very little interesting, action- and entertaining-wise happening. It's mostly being a traveling movie, in which there is lots of talking but just too little action and else to enjoy and to consider this an entertaining movie to watch. They should had really attempted to spice up things a bit more, by perhaps putting in stronger characters and tell the story from some more different perspectives. That way the story would at least had been more lively and interesting to watch. The movie now mostly feels like a very long sit, even though the movie is just over 2 hours long.But all these complaints don't mean that it's an horrible movie, by any means. It's still a good movie for what is is and you also have to keep in mind that this was an early '40's movie. Movies back in those days just weren't as fast paced and action packed as movies now days. They also certainly don't feature so much corny dialog as this movie does. It was quite laughable at times really and it made me cringe more than once.It's great that this movie got shot in full color. They make the wooded environments more vivid and also help the story to get more alive and involving to follow. Also definitely great to see Spencer Tracy in color, at a still relatively young age. Most big Hollywood leads from the good old days, like for instance Humphrey Bogart, never looked too well in color but Spencer Tracy is definitely an exception to this.Under the circumstances, it's not really a movie that did an awful lot wrong but it also at the same time didn't do much original or specular with its story either. This movie is definitely a good watch but it's just not a movie that I want to watch again, any time soon.7/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

mlaniga The location was a poor choice, and this ruins the movie right off the bat. I live near the area where Roger's Rangers once roamed. Fidor should have done a little research. Most of the trees are deciduous...maple, birch, oak, beech, alder...with some evergreens mixed in. Nice views in the movie, but there are no snow-capped peaks in Vermont during the summer(the retreat depicted in the movie took place in Vermont). For that matter, the historical retreat did not take place in summer, but in fall (October). The part that made me laugh the hardest was the pile of lizards for the wilderness stew. There aren't any lizards in the Vermont woods...lots of snakes, but no lizards. Major Rogers would not have let an unbalanced comrade in arms run off into the woods to die. He was fiercely protective of his men, and this nonsensical scene is not historical and does Major Rogers a disservice. Perhaps Fidor meant to convey the harshness of the life, but this scene reveals his complete misunderstanding of who Rogers was and of the brotherhood that characterized the Rangers.

keesha45 I saw this during the Spencer Tracy tribute on Aug. 18 on Turner Classic Movies. Ironically, that date is the birthdate of Meriwether Lewis (1774.) Much of the action in this film mirrors the toils and turmoils of the Lewis and Clark Expedition which occurred less than 50 years from the time of this story. When you see the men malnourished, facing difficult portages, battling mosquitoes and having to wade through cold water for long stretches, fearing Indian attacks constantly, you have some ideas of the challenges facing the Corps of Discovery. Their co-leader, Lewis (Actually, he officially outranked Clark during their trip, because Clark's orders promoting him to captain equal to Lewis didn't arrive before their departure) had a career that had much in common with Maj. Rogers. Like Rogers, he was a brilliant leader and his men followed him loyally to the end. Both men toiled along with the men and consulted their junior officers and men before making difficult life-or-death decisions. Both were hailed as great heroes by the public and government they represented after their marvelous feats of derring-do, but both came to bad ends. Rogers sided with the British during the Revolutionary War and his Rangers eventually became a Canadian outfit and he never was able to achieve his mission of finding the Northwest Passage, although as Tracy says in the film, he may have had little faith in there actually being such a water route. Lewis also never saw his extensive journals of his expedition come to be published, dying mysteriously in a Tennessee travelers' inn a few years after arriving home from that epic trip, which was charged with also trying to find the elusive Passage. Langdon's summary quote about Rogers could also apply to Lewis, as American adventurers since then carry his spirit of discovery with them, even into outer space. This film has always been one of my favorites. As a lover of westerns, I can enjoy many of the familiar elements: an arduous journey over breathtakingly beautiful but perilous land and water, battles with Indians, men and women of unflinching courage. I'm lucky enough to live in a part of the northwestern U.S. where some of the film footage was shot, which was only a little more than a hundred miles from the same part of Idaho which had proved so difficult to the Lewis and Clark expedition. In fact, this film and COME AND GET IT (1936), also featuring Walter Brennan in his first Oscar-winning role, were the first two films made in this part of the Northwest (specifically, northern Idaho) to achieve Academy Award nominations and NORTHWEST PASSAGE had some great photography which was so honored. If you've never traveled to the Northwest, I urge you to do so. And I urge you to see NORTHWEST PASSAGE. In either case, you'll enjoy the trip. Dale Roloff