 | |
List Price: $19.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 61931
Released: June 6, 2006 |
| Our Price: $3.50 |
| Used Price: $2.85 |
|
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
|
Editorial Review:
The merchant ship Glencairn rolls and shivers in the black North Atlantic. On board, her anxious crewmen search the sky for German planes. And hope they'll survive The Long Voyage Home. Director John Ford and screenwriter Dudley Nichols adapted four Eugene O'Neill one-acts into this compelling, lyrical look at men at sea that O'Neill considered his favorite of all his filmed works. As his sailors, Ford cast members of his so-called "Stock Company:" Thomas Mitchell, Barry Fitzgerald, Arthur Shields, Ward Bond, John Qualen and the star of the previous year's Stagecoach, John Wayne. As sunny, sweet-natured Ole Olsen, Wayne does winning work in an atypical role. Nominated for six Academy Awards?* incuding Best Picture, The Long Voyage Home is a journey to remember. Come aboard! Director John Ford and screenwriter Dudley Nichols adapted four Eugene O'Neill one-acts into this compelling, lyrical look at men at sea that O'Neill considered his favorite of all his filmed works. As his sailors, Ford cast members of his so-called "Stock Company:" Thomas Mitchell, Barry Fitzgerald, Arthur Shields, Ward Bond, John Qualen and the star of the previous year's Stagecoach, John Wayne. As sunny, sweet-natured Ole Olsen, Wayne does winning work in an atypical role. Nominated for six Academy Awards * incuding Best Picture, The Long Voyage Home is a journey to remember. Come aboard!
Description of The Long Voyage Home:
Eugene O'Neill loved this feature-length adaptation of his one-act sea plays, with intelligent bridging material written by Dudley Nichols and a final movement, both hellish and elegiac, appropriate to the onset of World War II. John Ford directed, in his more self-consciously arty vein (à la The Informer) but with no loss of power or passion. It's entirely fitting that the director shared his panel in the credits with cinematographer Gregg Toland, who had just shot The Grapes of Wrath for him in hard, dust-bowl sunlight and would next enter the labyrinth of Orson Welles's Citizen Kane; you'd be thrilled to have any frame of this film blown up and hanging on your wall.
The focus is on the working seamen aboard a merchant ship making its way from the Caribbean to New York harbor and then England, with dangerous cargo on the transatlantic leg. Thomas Mitchell (who had won a 1939 Oscar in Ford's Stagecoach) gives a career-best performance as Driscoll; Ian Hunter plays the enigmatic shipmate known only as "Smitty"; Ford regulars Barry Fitzgerald, John Qualen, Ward Bond, Arthur Shields, and Joseph Sawyer fill key roles; and the top-billed John Wayne contributes a surprisingly effective supporting performance as Ole, a gentle Swedish giant who really belongs on a farm somewhere. Although neglected in recent years--and seriously in need of restoration to do justice to its magnificent images--this movie has a permanent place of honor in one of the most amazing three-year creative streaks (throw in Young Mr. Lincoln, Drums Along the Mohawk, and How Green Was My Valley) any director ever had. --Richard T. Jameson
The Long Voyage Home Reviews:
got John Wayne in the big Hollywood door 
2009-07-08 - Acting is a trade.
Some people think it was "Stagecoach" that gave him his star place, but it was probably this movie where he played a character actor role with
many of the greats character actors of that time.
He put his toe on the line and said what they told him to.
The movie was a sad one about the heroes of the freighters
who brought necessary cargoes past u-boats and German bombers
to England at the beginning of WWII.
Some of the actors here are better than the plot.
A hard movie for me to like with the two deaths on the voyage that brought the men together.
The minds of men under stress, depicted by Eugene O'Neill 
2008-12-19 - Photographed by Gregg Toland, scripted by playwright Eugene O'Neill from four of his works and directed by the great John Ford, THE LONG VOYAGE HOME is not your standard naval/war movie.
Released during the early days of WWII, it's the story of a freighter crew's joys and their struggle for survival as the S.S. Glencairn plies treacherous enemy-infested waters of the North Atlantic. They travel unescorted with a load of ammunition bound for England. A crewman (Ian Hunter) is suspected of being a spy, but the accusations of others would lead to regrets all around. An after-hours carouse at a lowly portside tavern also has unexpected consequences.
When he speaks at all, John Wayne, fresh from his triumph with Ford in STAGECOACH (1939) (VHS) (DVD) uses a pronounced Swedish accent in his portrayal of Ole. Thomas Mitchell, who got the Oscar for that same film is most prominent here, as is Barry Fitzgerald. Of the half-dozen or so men we become acquainted with, nearly half are dead by story's end. Some of O'Neill's favorite plot devices (alcohol, depression, revelry, good and bad luck) are present, as is his expression of foreboding.
THE LONG VOYAGE HOME is also available on DVD.
RELATED FILM:
After Ford created a series of short documentaries for the US government, he and John Wayne did a feature about PT boats and the Pacific war, with THEY WERE EXPENDABLE (1945). (VHS edition) (DVD edition)
Parenthetical number preceding title is a 1 to 10 viewer poll rating found at a film resource website.
(7.1) The Long Voyage Home (1940) - John Wayne/Thomas Mitchell/Ian Hunter/Barry Fitzgerald/Wilfred Lawson/John Qualen/Mildred Natwick/Ward Bond (uncredited: Billy Bevan/James Flavin/Lee Shumway)
Very fine, but absolutely not a "John Wayne film"
2008-10-21 - ... and more an O'Neill play than a "Ford film." Traditionalist Wayne (and Ford) fans might be disappointed--his is a supporting role and his character is quiet (very few lines!) and passive, and even a bit dull-witted. It's disorienting witnessing scene after scene where Wayne is merely stuck in the background looking on as the story unwinds; knowledge of what Wayne was to become--perhaps the strongest and most distinctive acting presence of his times--disrupts any reading a viewer may have of the film. One sits on the edge of ones seat expecting The Duke to jump into the movie, and he just doesn't.
Otherwise it's an ensemble piece but with a terrific cast. The cinematography, as others have noted, is sensational. Rather than being part of a traditional John Ford or John Wayne DVD collection, this is a film that should have been remastered and released by a company like Criterion (like Young Mr. Lincoln). Then it would go to a more appropriate and possibly more appreciative audience.
A merchant ship''s crew tries to survive the loneliness of the sea and the coming of war.
2008-03-21 - On the long voyage home from the West Indies to Baltimore and then to England, the British tramp steamer the Glencairn takes aboard a cargo of munitions, a circumstance which turns the natural complaining of the crew into a case of genuine fear. Those fears are realized when a heavy gale tests the mettle of the ship and in the storm, mountainous waves hurtle the sailor Yank to the seething deck, thus bringing him to his death as his shipmates, Ole Olson and Driscoll, watch helplessly. As they approach land, the crew begins to suspect their brooding, aloof shipmate, Smitty, of sending signals to the Nazis, but they discover that Smitty has really withdrawn in disgrace from his family and all those around him because of his alchoholism. This revelation forces Smitty to resolve to return to his wife and children, but the reunion is tragically doomed when a Nazi plane swoops down from the skies off England and Smitty is killed in the attack. Safely in port after their harrowing crossing, the crew channel their energies into making sure that Ole leaves the sea to return to his aged mother in Sweden, but after bidding his friends farewell, Ole is shanghaied aboard the Amindra . Rescued by Driscoll and his other mates, Ole's voyage ends happily. Not so for Driscoll, because in the rescue he is taken prisoner and sails off aboard the Amindra in Ole's place. As the remaining seafarers return to the Glencairn to resume their long journey, they learn that Driscoll perished aboard the Amindra when the ship was sunk by a torpedo.
One of many Ford films that is severely underrated... 
2007-10-06 - This is one of Ford's most underrated films, a beautiful, poetic, sad, and haunting depiction of men at sea, and the terrors and tribulations that they endure. It is based on several one act Eugene O'Neill plays, and Mr. O'Neill absolutely adored this film. He loved the way Ford and Dudley Nichols transcribed his plays into something beautifully cinematic. The cinematography is some of the best of Ford's career, courtesy of Gregg Toland, the genius cameraman behind the camera for Citizen Kane. The performances are quite special here, with special mention going to Thomas Mitchell, John Qualen, Arthur Shields, and the actor who plays Smitty (his name escapes me). John Wayne plays a Swede here with an accent no less, but he does it superlatively, and he shows a lot of depth and sweetness in this role. When Wayne was with Ford, he was his best, playing characters that weren't perfect and all too human. The sailors all feel like real people and not caricatures. There is a fight at the end of the film, and it's actually pretty brutal for its time. I liked it because it feels real, not choreographed. This is one of Ford's finest works, one that can seen many, many times. Ford made so many great films that many fall between the cracks, and this is one of them. It's really quite special. It's as good as anything he's ever done...
