Wake of the Red Witch Blu-ray Review
John Wayne, Actor.
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, April 22, 2013
The dissolution of the studio system in the late forties and on into the fifties is a fascinating study in corporate
hierarchies struggling to deal
with new realties, many of which were foisted upon them not so much by government decree (as in the anti monopoly
rulings that divested the
studios of their theaters), but the public at large (which began matriculating to the free idiom of television in ever
increasing numbers as the
fifties wore on). But buried beneath the stories of the studios and their magnates having to come to terms with not
being the all powerful
entities they once were are other, just as interesting stories, about a handful of actors who presciently saw the
handwriting on the wall and
decided to at least attempt to take their fates into their own hands. The Golden Age of Hollywood is rife with stories
about actors being
pigeonholed in certain kinds of roles, often rebelling and at least occasionally suing or being put on suspension
(sometimes in tandem) since
they felt powerless to control their own futures. But suddenly during this era a few smart actors surveyed the changing
landscape and decided
that
producing was where the real power lay, and they formed their own production companies to help steer
their careers outside of
what was obviously becoming a crumbling studio system. Two of the earliest stars to take this route were Burt
Lancaster and John Wayne.
While Lancaster actually had a number of different production entities through the years, Wayne's chief producton
outlet was the rather oddly
named Batjac Productions. If you've ever wondered if that name were an acronym or perhaps a combination of
phonemes from, say, the
names of Wayne's children, it isn't. It's actually a misspelled version of a trading company mentioned in
Wake of the
Red Witch, a 1948
seafaring potboiler starring Wayne and Gail Russell that combines elements of treasure hunting with a kind of turgid
and highly unlikely love
triangle.
Wake of the Red Witch has some problems, there's no doubt about it, but it is also a "must see" film for any
true
John Wayne aficionado, for it's one of the few films Wayne appeared in where he isn't a typical stalwart hero. Wayne's
character of Ralls, a rough and tumble Captain in the West Indies in the mid-19th century, is easily one of the most
shaded roles the actor ever undertook to play. Ralls is a study in contrasts. He's rough hewn, bordering on being a
martinet (Captain Bligh could learn a thing or two from Ralls in terms of keeping his crew in line), prone to alcoholic
stupors, and carrying enough emotional baggage to get him to hell and back. Wayne is surprisingly adept at navigating
these roiling waters, especially since in the somewhat confusing screenplay by Harry Brown and Kenneth Gamet
(adapting
a bestselling novel by Garland Roark), a chronological through line is at least partially obscured by flashbacks and a
nonlinear storytelling artifice.
The film's perhaps overly convoluted plot deals with a long festering dispute between Ralls and Sidneye (Luther Adler
in one of his few featured film appearances), the owner of the shipping company that owns the Red Witch, the ship
Ralls commands. We meet Ralls in the midst of a scheme to scuttle the Red Witch in the hopes of being able to secretly
come back and purloin its hefty freight which is worth several million dollars. This scheme involves a lot of machinations
which include conspiracies with Ralls' newfound ally Sam Rosen (Gig Young) and against Mr. Loring (Jeff Corey), a lackey
of Sidneye's who is on the Red Witch and realizes that Ralls is up to no good. While the scuttling goes more or less as
planned, the repercussions don't, which leads to the rest of the film's sometimes silly histrionics as we slowly get to
understand what
really is going on
vis a vis Ralls and Sidneye.
Of course there's a woman involved, in this case a former flame of Ralls' named Angelique (Gail Russell) who has been
forced into an arranged marriage with Sidneye. If
Wake of the Red Witch had stayed centered on this love
triangle, no matter how unlikely, it might have ultimately been a more dramatically compelling film. As it stands, the film
goes off on an increasingly bizarre series of tangents, including Ralls and Sam ending up on an island ruled by a
perhaps power mad Sidneye that seems like it
was ported over from other South Seas fare like
Ebb Tide. The fact that we don't even get to the triangle until
midway through the film, and then only courtesy of a flashback, is another perhaps fatal miscalculation by the film's
scenarists.
Gail Russell is yet another tragic story in the annals of Hollywood, and
Wake of the Red Witch is arguably her
best screen performance. Signed by Paramount at the tender age of 18 despite having no real interest in an acting
career, Russell appeared in a number of supporting roles, as well as one other Wayne feature,
Angel and the
Badman. By the 1950s she was debilitated by an increasing alcoholism, and ultimately found herself making
national headlines when she drunkenly crashed her car through a diner's plate glass window. She drank herself to
death at the shocking age of 36. Russell brings a certain exotic allure to the role of Angelique and plays well off of
Wayne's simmering melancholy throughout the film.
Wake of the Red Witch also manages to work in pearl diving (something at the center of many a South Seas film
adventure) as well as a giant octopus (shades of
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea),
working in all these plot elements in a sort of fever dream approach that may in fact seem like Ralls' version of
delirium tremens. The film is very scenic, with lots of second unit (and stock) footage helping to establish place,
but the film's turgid dramatic ambience often undercuts its exotic locales. As iconic a stage actor as Adler was, he
seems incredibly uncomfortable in front of the camera, and Gig Young also is miscast as the two faced helper. That
leaves most of the heavy lifting to Wayne and Russell, along with some noted supporting players like Henry Daniell and
Paul Fix. The good news is that the top billed stars are excellent, with this being a real standout in Wayne's
oeuvre. Rarely has Wayne shown such range and he manages to bring both an arrogant cockiness and
haunted sadness to Ralls. It's a performance that makes the rest of these choppy waters worth wading through.
