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Reap the Wild Wind

Play trailer Poster for Reap the Wild Wind 1942 2h 4m Adventure Play Trailer Watchlist
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80% Tomatometer 10 Reviews 57% Popcornmeter 1,000+ Ratings
Along the seaboard of the American South during the 1840s, cut-throat salvagers who profit from the wrecks of transatlantic cargo ships move from exploiting shipwrecks to causing them. As the most dangerous of the salvagers, King Cutler (Raymond Massey), takes aim at the ships of the wealthy Devereaux Company, ambitious ship captain Jack Stuart (John Wayne) and company lawyer Stephen Tolliver (Ray Milland) vie for the hand of feisty Loxi Claiborne (Paulette Goddard).

Critics Reviews

View All (10) Critics Reviews
THR Staff The Hollywood Reporter The show, on a grand DeMille scale, is technically magnificent and will earn many times its cost at the nation's box offices. Mar 20, 2019 Full Review Tony Sloman Radio Times The beginning and end are spectacular -- Cecil B DeMille proving yet again that, even as a director, he was a great producer -- but this maritime vessel does get very watery amidships. Rated: 3/5 Mar 19, 2020 Full Review Matt Brunson Film Frenzy The film's most interesting element is seeing Wayne cast in a role with unexpectedly dark shadings, a far cry from the spotless heroes he played during this period but a hint at the complex characters he would later essay in The Searchers and Red River. Rated: 3.5/4 Sep 23, 2019 Full Review Elena de la Torre Cine-Mundial One of the greatest and most extraordinary movies we have admired from DeMille. [Full Review in Spanish] Sep 16, 2019 Full Review Emanuel Levy EmanuelLevy.Com DeMille's epic spectacle has a preposterous plot but the undersea effects are good and so is the acting; it's hard to believe but Ray Milland was then a bigger name than John Wayne, who gets second billing. Susan Hayward is billed below Paulette Godard. Rated: B- May 9, 2007 Full Review Dennis Schwartz Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews Tepid hokum adventure tale from Cecil B. De Mille. Rated: C+ Oct 5, 2005 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (35) audience reviews
Jerry E DeMille was Hollywood’s most overrated director. His potboiler epics were shallow ego trips. Compared with the great directors of his era, he was just a swaggering poseur. For all his pretension about spectacle, his films were static and claustrophobic. This film is pure hokum, long, silly, and boring. Rated 1 out of 5 stars 07/30/24 Full Review ocedummy L Very good old time sailing/criminal story. Good guys are excellent and the baddies hit the nail on the head. And the love angle is engaging. Not quite as good as The Wake of the Red Witch, but close enough. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 07/10/23 Full Review John R For practical effects, it's hard to beat DeMille. Everything he made was the height of practical effects, set design and art direction for the era. So this movie certainly can't be faulted on those counts. I found the story to be a little odd. Paulette Goddard's character was clearly not interested in Ray Milland's for the entire movie, but the plot functioned in such a way that the viewer was basically led to the conclusion she didn't know what she herself wanted. I was surprised at the final shots, but the impression I have is that the original audience probably wouldn't have been. It was interesting to see a Wayne character that was as morally compromised as this one. In most of his cowboy movies, he's unquestionably the good guy, but here he's self-centered and double crossing. He plays it well though. All in all, a good time and there's just something old-timey magical about watching it on VHS. Makes me feel like a kid again. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 04/03/23 Full Review Liam D It does have an pointless court room sub plot near the end but it's an entertaining old Hollywood adventure with some impressive Oscar winning special effects Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/08/23 Full Review andy f A Cecil B DeMille masterpiece. Its hard to pick holes in this masterpiece that is sophisticated, thrilling, funny and romantic. A work of art and Hollywood excess. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review lanfranco c Sometime JW is a bad boy ! Rated 3 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Read all reviews
Reap the Wild Wind

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Reap the Wild Wind

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Movie Info

Synopsis Along the seaboard of the American South during the 1840s, cut-throat salvagers who profit from the wrecks of transatlantic cargo ships move from exploiting shipwrecks to causing them. As the most dangerous of the salvagers, King Cutler (Raymond Massey), takes aim at the ships of the wealthy Devereaux Company, ambitious ship captain Jack Stuart (John Wayne) and company lawyer Stephen Tolliver (Ray Milland) vie for the hand of feisty Loxi Claiborne (Paulette Goddard).
Director
Cecil B. DeMille
Producer
Cecil B. DeMille
Screenwriter
Alan Le May, Charles Bennett, Jesse Lasky Jr.
Production Co
Paramount
Genre
Adventure
Original Language
English
Release Date (Streaming)
Feb 10, 2017
Runtime
2h 4m