Directed by:
Frank LloydCinematography:
Archie StoutComposer:
Richard HagemanCast:
Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Margaret Lockwood, George Bancroft, Montagu Love, Vaughan Glaser, David Torrence, Lester Matthews, Alec Craig, Barlowe Borland (more)Plots(1)
In the 1830s, despite the development of the steamboat at the outset of the 19th century, all trans-Atlantic travel was still done by sailing ships. David Gillespie (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) is first mate on one of the fastest of such ships, commanded by Captain Oliver (George Bancroft), but he is sickened and wary of the loss of life of sailing men caused by the limitations of sail. He meets John Shaw (Will Fyffe), a Liverpool-based machinist who insists that he has a design for an engine and a ship that will allow safe trans-Atlantic travel by steam power, and the two go into partnership -- but Gillespie must contend with the resistance of Shaw's headstrong and skeptical daughter, Mary (Margaret Lockwood), as well as the resistance of bankers and other shipbuilders to the new ideas he represents. All of this pleases Mary, who, despite her love of her father and attraction to Gillespie, regards herself as practical-minded and wants her father safely back working for his old employer on a steady salary, instead of pursuing what she regards as impossible goals. Gillespie gets the backing and Shaw builds his engine, but his ship is burned in an accidental fire, and all looks lost until a sympathetic backer proposes fitting the engine to an existing vessel, and suddenly Shaw is a real threat to the shipping establishment. They try to stop him in the courts, and when that fails, the race is on from Liverpool to New York, between Shaw's steam-powered ship and Gillespie's sail-driven former ship, with Mary aboard to look out for her father and Gillespie, and the future of ocean travel in the balance. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Cast
Robert Homans
USA
Best movies:
Fury (1936)
It Started with Eve (1941)
The Thin Man Goes Home (1945)
Wade Boteler
USA
Best movies:
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Love Crazy (1941)
The Roaring Twenties (1939)
Allen Fox
Best movies:
It Happened One Night (1934)
Christmas in Connecticut (1945)
The Seventh Cross (1944)
Edgar Norton
UK
Best movies:
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
The Man in the Iron Mask (1939)
The Man Who Laughs (1928)
Lionel Belmore
UK
Best movies:
The Last of the Mohicans (1936)
Three Ages (1923)
If I Were King (1938)
Broderick O'Farrell
USA
Best movies:
Love Crazy (1941)
It Started with Eve (1941)
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
Olaf Hytten
UK
Best movies:
The Good Earth (1937)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Casablanca (1942)
Wyndham Standing
UK
Best movies:
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Waterloo Bridge (1940)
Madame Curie (1943)
Harry Cording
UK
Best movies:
East of Eden (1955)
The Last of the Mohicans (1936)
The Song of Bernadette (1943)
Crauford Kent
UK
Best movies:
The Invisible Man (1933)
The Sea Hawk (1940)
A Christmas Carol (1938)
Hayden Stevenson
USA
Best movies:
Reap the Wild Wind (1942)
Birth of the Blues (1941)
Easy Living (1937)
David Newell
USA
Best movies:
Gone with the Wind (1939)
Union Pacific (1939)
Act of Violence (1948)
Roy Gordon
USA
Best movies:
Love Crazy (1941)
Lust for Life (1956)
The Spirit of St. Louis (1957)
Paul Newlan
USA
Best movies:
Monsieur Verdoux (1947)
We're No Angels (1955)
If I Were King (1938)
Lionel Pape
UK
Best movies:
The Philadelphia Story (1940)
Midnight (1939)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
Harry Allen
Australia
Best movies:
Waterloo Bridge (1940)
Holiday (1938)
The White Cliffs of Dover (1944)
David Clyde
UK
Best movies:
Waterloo Bridge (1940)
The Lost Weekend (1945)
The Philadelphia Story (1940)
David Thursby
UK
Best movies:
Waterloo Bridge (1940)
Captains Courageous (1937)
The Heiress (1949)
George MacQuarrie
USA
Best movies:
King Kong (1933)
Desire (1936)
The Crusades (1935)
Frank Shannon
Ireland
Best movies:
Holiday (1938)
Reap the Wild Wind (1942)
Union Pacific (1939)