February takes Old Academy Anew on a trip with a bunch of drunken seamen while the world is in the middle of a war. What could go wrong, right? Turns out, a lot could and will go wrong. The Long Voyage Home (1940) starts with a darken anchored vessel— drums and unintelligible vocals as background in a very not just primitive but primal vibe. Women in what’s supposed to be the idea at the time of what Caribbean women wear at night (basically Carmen Miranda sans the fruit hat) languidly pose on palm trees like sirens calling from deathly rocks— sweaty and enticing.
The aforementioned seamen stare to land from the bulwark, vibrating with need and hunger. The word that comes to mind is plain and simple: horny. This goes on for several minutes until the first words of the movie are actually uttered from a radio transmission, “26,000 prisoners were taken as well as inestimable booty.” Booty. Snort. There are a few more lines of information about the war in English then the radio channel switches to Spanish, talking about a boat sunken in Montevideo…
We’ll talk later about the number of places mentioned in The Long Voyage Home— something that feels a lot like a douchebag dropping famous people’s names to imply he’s connected…
The second seaman we see is actually a young-looking John Wayne (37 at the time) who plays Ole Olsen, a Swedish national that for “reasons” has been at sea, away from this farm and family (mother and brother) for almost ten years. Everybody on the Glencairn likes the big log (most of the crew don’t even reach his shoulder), and that appreciation will play big on the development of the story. Nevertheless, the movie is not about Ole. The story is not even about Smitty (Ian Hunter) or Driscoll (Thomas Mitchell). It’s about all seamen— in the most devastating way.
STEREOTYPES AND SHENANIGANS
The throbbing and trembling on the bulwark ends with everybody hastily herded to the sleeping quarters. There’s a looming sadness in the air amid the ready-to-explode testosterone, and it’s quite fascinating.
Our seamen cannot go to shore, and the Captain and his second are going around doing a roll call after lights out. They’ve received information about a seaman in police custody after a bar fight. During this portion of the movie they keep saying “native police,” and I could totally see the comment section of the movie trailer aflame if that happened today. Driscoll did sneak to port but appears in time and with a good excuse for being out of bed. The Captain leaves the men among their bunk beds, and the crew promptly surrounds Driscoll for news. He has secured a bunch of ladies to come aboard to give them a little bit of fun.
The Captain, who has been a total jerk up to that point, doesn’t seem to mind when the women finally arrive, even choosing one for himself and sending her to a different part of the ship, probably his cabin. There’s a reason for this; they have received orders to retrieve ammunition at a US port to transport it back to England to help with the war.
How one thing has anything to do with the other, I have no clue but hey, The Long Voyage Home is a movie, and a movie has to movie.
We don’t know how long these men have been without women, but they are a rowdy bunch. Even the Captain has to warn them, “No rough stuff.” We are left to wonder what’s not rough when their interactions with the women left me feeling dirty. Their handsy desperation will not fly in 2022. Not even in 1997.
The fourth main character Yank (Ward Bond) is the roughest of the bunch and fixates on one of the ladies after she tries to engage Smitty. He bodily takes her to the cabin where they are having their fun. Smitty remains on the upper deck away from the shenanigans with another seaman, who has the intriguing moniker of “donkeyman.”
But I’m going to call him “the narrator” because I’m not going to be able to write that without laughing my ass off every single time.
After a while, Yank’s woman finds her way out and back to Smitty, offering the rum they have stealthily brought aboard. He pays for the bottle. When he’s about to break it on the rail to open it, the narrator takes it from him to get the cork out with his knife. This gives the viewers an inkling of how this man sees Smitty because we have seen others break the bottles to drink from them without hesitation. Smitty is new to the crew, but he’s special, we just don’t know why yet.
The woman (The Long Voyage Home never bothers with her name) offers herself to Smitty but not in the same way her companions have offered themselves to the other men.
Perhaps she’s sensed the same as the narrator. Nevertheless, Yank comes back for her and was ready to punch whoever is keeping her from him when he realizes who the man is. “Aw, Smitty. Smitty the Duke. I almost popped you. Well, you and me’s friends, Smitty, ain’t we?” They shake hands. “Any pal of mine can have anything I got, Smitty.” Anyway, Yank still takes the woman away, and she slaps Smitty, annoyed by his silent rejection.
There’s certain animosity between the two sleeping quarters of the ship. We usually follow the men of the Ole, Driscoll, Yank, and Smitty cabin. The others somehow look different. Since everybody seems to have an undetermined accent from all over the British islands— and Sweden, I don’t know if the other men are separated because they are from a different region. Still, you notice that the main characters don’t totally click with them. When the party spills to the upper deck and it’s about to reach its crescendo, a fight ensues.
The Long Voyage Home tries to make it cute with banter and moments of comedic punching, but it’s terrifying because the underlying thing here is that the two groups hate each other.
The women scream and cackle in equal measure, bringing to mind witches— enjoying the brawl and sucking all the negative energy from it. It’s very disturbing. The fight ends with one of “the others” stabbed with a broken bottle. Only Ole and Driscoll remain while the other crew members flee like effing rats abandoning ship.
The witches, I mean, the women get their comeuppance because since they weren’t supposed to bring rum they don’t get paid for their services. Their matron tries to argue with the Captain, but he threatens them with jail, and they leave, amid a florid burst of insults in Spanish.
We are never told what port this is. Someone mentions West Indies. Interestingly, I grew up in the Caribbean part of my country, and what we called West Indies was the Non-Spanish-Speaking side of the Caribbean.
This leaves me even more clueless as to where this part of The Long Voyage Home even happens.
The stabbed “other” is taken to be patched up, and we never see or hear about him ever again. No one is punished for this action. The audience saw who did it, but we can’t say anything, and the crew chooses silence.
Our seamen go to America to retrieve their cargo. They rib Ole about being a farm boy and even make him yodel. After seeing John Wayne as an Old West-leading man my whole life, this movie was refreshing. He’s in this 106 minutes movie for a grand total of about 30 minutes, but whenever the frame is on him, he commands it. He absolutely nails that goofy, sweet innocence Americans associate with the people from that part of the world. Remember this is a 1940 movie, full of clichés and anachronisms by today’s standards. To put another nail on that stereotype’s coffin, we see a black character once or twice, always with big cartoon eyes. I’m going to say he’s the cook because of the hat he wears, but he’s never acknowledged or utters a word. Yeah.
As the boxes are loaded our boys realize what it is and how dangerous it is for them. Wouldn’t it be ridiculous to die in a ball of fire in the middle of the ocean? They threaten the Captain with a mass exodus. The Captain puts them in their place, “As far as this job is concerned, you men haven’t got any names. You’re just (unintelligible) hands. Just as I am (unintelligible) to see this cargo to England. If it doesn’t get there, it will be missed. But we won’t.”
The unintelligible thing is literal because not even the close captioning can decipher what they are saying and chooses “inaudible” during The Long Voyage Home to fill the blanks.
As the crew glance among themselves, the Captain tells them a bonus is added to their payment for the inconvenience. This changes the tides. Still, they are to remain on board. Smitty asks why, and the answer is simple: the Captain cannot trust these drunken idiots not to spill their guts and let someone ashore know about their cargo. Smitty insists they are entitled to a night on land before they leave port. The Captain cuts him off with a “No more of your lip,” and about-faces.
That night, as the Glencairn raises anchor, Smitty jumps off the ship. He leaves everything behind but a small black box he holds dearly to his chest.
PERSPECTIVE AND TRUTH
Smitty is caught and beaten by the port police. Nonetheless, he’s taken back to sail with the ship. The hulking vessel departs surrounded by darkness, fog, and a tragic score; our main characters looking furlong and resigned propped on the bulwarks, staring longingly at the land they couldn’t touch again.
Whether the attempted escape has consequences or not, we never know because we see Smitty manning the wheel afterward. Sometime later, a storm engulfs the ship. The crew wrangle tarps to close the cargo bay’s entrance under the wind, rain, and massive waves. I call shenanigans here because, c’mon, these are experience seamen. You’re telling me they didn’t see that storm coming? It’s visually striking, but it makes no effing sense. The storm somehow loosens the anchor, and Yank runs to bring it back up.
The ship tumbles and heaves. Waves crash all around, flooding the decks. Yank gets hurt as he saves the ship.
Days pass. The storm does not abate, and Yank is not recuperating. We learn a broken rib has punctured his lung. On his last legs, he begs Drisc and Ole to stay with him, and other crew members take their shifts so they can remain. Smitty shows up after his shift and asks about him. Yank has just closed his eyes, and Drisc says, “Shh. He’s asleep, he is.”
“No, I ain’t, Drisc,” Yank says, his voice clear but tremulous. “I was just dreaming. Thought I was way in the middle of land where you could never smell the sea or— or look at a ship.” He calls for Ole’s attention. The Swede says he’s there. Yank earnestly warns him, “This ain’t no life, Ole. If you don’t leave it this trip, you’ll never will.”
“Sure, we’ll both put him on his way home, soon as we’re all paid off,” Drisc offers cheerfully.
Yank looks at Drisc with eyes that tell us he knows his friend too well to actually believe his white lies. Here, they reminisce of the ports they have conquered together: Buenos Aires, Barracas, La Plata, Singapore, Sydney, Cape Town, Cardiff. He sees fog surrounding him. Drisc tries to distract him.
Yank asks for a drink. Ole runs to the bedside with a cup, but Yank is not breathing anymore.
Drisc wails over his friend’s unmoving chest. His funeral is quick amid the rain and the threatening waves. If hearing the splash of Yank’s shrouded body in the ocean doesn’t break your heart, the body language of the seamen as they scatter will.
The sun is finally out, now they approach the war zone. We see one of the crew members painting the porthole over Smitty’s bed in black to keep lights from showing and alert any German submarines of their presence. Another crew member is reading a magazine and telling them about a Nazi spy in Paris who got caught sending messages encoded in love letters to Berlin via Switzerland. The magazine gives way too many details, and the men are both disgusted and amazed.
Smitty is doing some repairs in the chart room. As soon as the Captain leaves it, he takes the dividers and does some calculations on their course map.
Another crew member, who has always looked at him suspiciously, catches him in the act as he enters to replace Ole at the wheel. After a long absence, the narrator comes out for some exposition. He and Smitty start a conversation which ends with Smitty saying he’s not coming back to sea after this trip but enlisting. “Good. The Navy needs men,” the narrator agrees. But Smitty counters before walking away, “Navy? No. I’m going in the Army if they’ll have me.”
Jonesing for a drink, Smitty notices the Captain’s cabin open and gets in. He rummages the desk’s drawers for liquor. He finds a bottle, takes a swig— then hides it under his shirt. The reader of the spy magazine enters the cabin with a coffee tray in that moment. Smitty gives him a shitty reason for being there and exits. With narrowed eyes, the man picks up one thing left in the opened drawer and reads, “International Code of Signals. British Edition.” Dun Dun Dun.
You know where this is going, right?
That night, Smitty finishes the stolen bottle and opens the blackened porthole to get rid of it. The splash makes one of the sentinels search for the origin of the noise. He sees a light winking on and off on the side of the ship. He opens a trapdoor over the place where the mysterious light emanates. Smitty looks at him defiantly then both notice the porthole opening and closing. Smitty locks it properly. The guy goes to tell the sentinel next to him, but the movie gotta movie and just says he saw a light flickering as if sending signals on the side of the boat. Ah, but this other sentinel is the same guy who saw Smitty handling the course map.
Yep, Smitty fucked— because when that guy goes down to the sleeping cabin Smitty is acting all suspicious with his little black box. Dude turns the light of the cabin on like he just came for the change of shift. Everybody starts getting dressed and moving to their posts. Dude disses Smitty as he leaves. Ole (on his way out) and Drisc (getting in from his shift) both say Smitty is all right.
All the guys who have seen weird things are in the cabin, and conspiracies fly left, right, and center.
The certainty that his last name isn’t Smith but Schmidt riles them. The fact that he jumped ship in the US brings a new theory. He was either passing information about the ammunition or trying to bring a Nazi aboard. Even Drisc cannot deny “the mounting pile” of espionage evidence. The group concludes that the little black box is a bomb and throws it in a bucket of water.
Several of the seamen grab Smitty from his post and drag him to the cabin. Drisc asks Smitty about the black box. He snarls it’s none of their business. They yank the key to the black box from Smitty’s neck. There’s only a pack of letters inside the box. But remember them codes, mothersuckas! Drisc starts reading the letters. Each line is more depressing and traumatic than the previous. By the end of the third letter, all the men inside the cabin are tear-eyed and disgusted with themselves. Smitty dies the next day when the Glencairn is attacked by German aircrafts. He’s the only casualty of that encounter.
FATE AND FREE WILL
The ship finally reaches England. Here we learn why the Captain has kept these drunkards away from the bottles the whole time. They make horrible choices. Still, they promise to never come back to the Glencairn— or any other ship for that matter.
Their love-hate relationship with the sea, bottle, women, and land at large reaches its climax when they get Ole shanghaied because “Why not a last drink to his good fortune” in the wrong bar around the wrong women. After a while, they realize the big log is missing and go to his rescue, only to end up with Drisc shanghaied instead.
My dark little heart overjoys when I see the flag of my country, Panama, on the infamous Amindra taking its unearned crew member to Valparaiso. This also ends in tragedy.
The Long Voyage Home shows us not only trauma and solitude but longing in a way that’s tragic and endearing.
I usually don’t go for dramas because, you know, we just need to watch the news to know how it’s going on out there and right here. Nevertheless, these men’s tragedies amid the desolation of the sea and the fleeting satisfaction inside a bottle or at the bottom of a glass of whiskey should make us think. Choices are all we have. Even in our darkest moments, it is our choice to keep moving or let the night swallow us.
These men chose the ocean as an escape and yet craved land every time it was in sight. What does that say about them? What does it say about us when we encounter the same predicament?
The word “home” is used myriad times in The Long Voyage Home. In the end, only one of these sailors gets there. The others die or return to what they know. “Better the devil you know,” some say. To these men, that devil is the ocean.
This movie is Shakespearean, Freudian, and almost dystopian in its bleakness. It has a dark sadness that doesn’t end in redemption.
I don’t even know exactly how I feel after watching this black nautical ode that is The Long Voyage Home.
Interestingly, the seamen called Smitty “the Duke” in this film. A name intimately associated with John Wayne many years later. Also, some critics suggested at the time that The Long Voyage Home bombed the general public because it was too dark and lacked a romance.
I mean, one of the main posters for the movie has this kind of hook, “The love of women in their eyes… the salt of the sea in their blood.” Most posters for The Long Voyage Home show happy women and cheerful sailors. I call that false advertisement. I’m scared to even wonder what all the keyboard warriors and Youtubers will say about it today. Pretty sure they would have something to say about Janus Films, though. One of the companies mentioned during the two minutes of logos and information at the beginning of the movie. Janus is the Roman God with two faces— one looking at the past and the other at the future. A neat Easter egg.
I’m going to give The Long Voyage Home 8/10 because I wish Smitty had been an actual spy. Not even a Nazi but an American spy to give it a truly surprising twist since the US wasn’t even fully involved in WW2 until 1941.
Cheers.
The Long Voyage Home is currently streaming on HBOMax.