Plymouth Adventure

Director: Clarence Brown Clarence Brown

Overview

Plymouth Adventure earned a footnote in film history as the last directorial effort by the prolific Clarence Brown. Otherwise, this colorful re-creation of the Pilgrims' journey to America is a workmanlike job, never inspired but always interesting. Spencer Tracy stars as bull-stubborn Captain Christopher Jones, who intends to guide the Mayflower to its destination come Hell, high water or any other obstacle. Since Jones is spiritually "wed" to his job, the film's romantic angle is handled by Van Johnson as John Alden and Dawn Addams as Patricia Mullen. Gene Tierney is second-billed as Dorothy Bradford, the ill-fated bride of future Plymouth Colony governor William Bradford. Though the film makes several departures from the facts (there's even a villain!), Plymouth Adventure tells its tale professionally and with satisfactory entertainment value. The film earned MGM artisan A. Arnold Gillespie an Academy Award for best special effects.

Product Details

Release Date:	11/09/2010
UPC:	0883316289679
Original Release:	1952
Rating:	NR
Source:	Warner Archives
Presentation:	[Full Frame]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	1:45:00
Sales rank:	24,114

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Spencer Tracy	Capt. Christopher Jones
Gene Tierney	Dorothy Bradford
Van Johnson	John Alden
Lloyd Bridges	Coppin
Leo Genn	William Bradford
Dawn Addams	Priscilla Mullins
Barry Jones	William Brewster
John Dehner	Gilbert Winslow
Tommy Ivo	William Button
Lowell Gilmore	Edward Winslow
Noel Drayton	Miles Standish
Rhys Williams	Mr. Weston
Kathleen Lockhart	Mary Brewster
Murray Matheson	Christopher Martin
John Dierkes	Greene
Paul Cavanagh	John Carver
Noreen Corcoran	Ellen Moore
Dennis Hoey	Head Constable
Hugh Pryne	Samuel Fuller
Matt Moore	William Mullins
William Self	Sailor
Loren B. Brown	Sailor
Elizabeth Flournoy	Rose Standish
Damian O'Flynn	Clarke
Keith McConnell	William White
Elizabeth Harrower	Elizabeth Hopkins
Owen McGiveney	Duff
Bill Self	Actor
Ivis Goulding	Alice Mullins
Roger Broaddus	Bit Role
Gene Coogan	Sailor
Kay English	Catherine Carver
James Logan	Trevore
Miklós Rózsa	Composer

Technical Credits

Helen Deutsch

Clarence Brown	Director
Helen Deutsch	Screenwriter
Dore Schary	Producer
Warren Newcombe	Special Effects
A. Arnold Gillespie	Special Effects
Irving Ries	Special Effects

Editorial Reviews

Producer/director Clarence Brown had a long-held fascination with American history, and had previously directed Spencer Tracy in one of his better historical impersonations, Edison, The Man. Additionally, Brown seemed to thrive working in costume drama, as demonstrated by his success with Anna Karenina (1935), part of the director's long string of box office hits with Greta Garbo. Alas, despite all of these elements going for it -- and a great story at its core -- Plymouth Adventure was not one of Brown's triumphs and, in fact, led to his relinquishing the director's chair and, ultimately, retiring from the industry while still in his early sixties. The basic problem is that the film has no forward momentum, lying there for much of its length seemingly adrift -- indeed, movie audiences could well have found themselves fearful of the film's lack of any seeming plot progress, much as the Mayflower's passengers in the film live for weeks with the fear that they are adrift in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, without hope of reaching land. The movie's slow progress is broken up by a few bursts of fist-fighting, treachery, and romantic passion (between Spencer Tracy's gruff, cynical captain Christopher Jones and Gene Tierney's pious-but-challenged Dorothy Bradford, and Van Johnson's John Alden and Dawn Addams' Priscilla Mullins), but these moments only serve to bring into sharper relief the flaccid drama and pacing around them; and the color photography doesn't really come to life until we reach the New World. Tracy does what he can with what is essentially a one-note role until the final third of the movie, with some compelling lines and scenes along the way, but even he can't save this picture, despite giving it his best effort. And all the acting muscle of the rest of the cast comes to little under Brown's leaden direction. Yet the movie is also a kind of a noble (if deeply flawed) effort to explain who some of the people who founded what became the United States were -- there are moments of rousing reverence that, alas, may be lost on any Americans who doesn't remember their elementary school history. And Miklos Rozsa, working in the unusual idiom of early American (indeed, almost pre-Colonial) music, turns in a rousing score -- and one that received a commercial release on LP, a rare honor at that time for an instrumental score on a non-musical film from MGM. The movie is more a curio than anything else -- it can hardly be called entertainment -- for the talent involved.

All Movie Guide - Bruce Eder