BlazeLime Strong and Moving!

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Panamint "Plymouth Adventure" somehow manages to avoid being corny or sappy and also avoids being religiously preachy. By sticking to straightforward storytelling it gets the job done in a dignified way that retains your interest as the story unfolds.Spencer Tracy is too old and craggy for the romantic scenes with a much younger actress, but utterly dominates the film in a constructive manner through extreme talent and skill. He manages to dominate the film without being noisy or over-acting. As usual an amazing demonstration of acting skill by Tracy.Van Johnson, basically a humble, kindly sort of actor is appropriately cast as a poor man in the hard-working carpentry profession. Leo Genn of the golden voice and saintly countenance is well cast as a gentle, religious-minded leader. Actually Genn's voice is beyond golden- I would describe his voice as 24-carat gold or maybe even platinum. Gene Tierney, a complex and tragic beauty and fine actress, is cast as what else... you guessed it, her character is beautiful and tragic. And on and on I could comment about the triumphs of good casting that add immeasurably to the success of "Plymouth Adventure".The script is not very dynamic, and while not intense in the movie-drama sense, manages to avoid all the maudlin or preachy traps that it could have fallen into. So, while being far from great, this movie is watchable and generally succeeds in my opinion.

bkoganbing In doing a review of Plymouth Adventure we should start out by saying this is most definitely not a docudrama about the Pilgrims. This is a film adaption of a novel by Ernest Gebler in which the author threw some things in there that never happened or are the subject of much speculation.Gene Tierney's character of Dorothy Bradford did in fact drown under unknown circumstances, but there is no reason to think it was suicide as opposed to an accident and her yearnings for Captain William Jones of the Mayflower is just part of the Gebler's fertile imagination. He was certainly imaginative enough giving a little scandalous romance into the Puritan community.Plymouth Adventure is a nice tribute to those brave and hearty souls who set forth into an unknown land in which half of them died the first winter, but those who survived creating an American national tradition in the Thanksgiving Holiday. And a black day for turkeys everywhere.Lately the religious right has latched on to the Pilgrims in their efforts to prove America is a Christian nation. Of course once they got here they ran what became the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a theocracy. Still they were an intrepid lot and their courage is beyond question.Spencer Tracy gives a fine performance as the rugged and cynical sea captain of the Mayflower, the chartered ship which takes the Pilgrims from Southampton to an unknown world. I think Tracy drew a lot from some of the characters in Eugene O'Neill's plays in his portrayal of Jones. He has a moment in which he says that people have disappointed him, but the sea never let him down. Could have come from any of O'Neill's works.An Oscar for Best Special Effects went to Plymouth Adventure showing some of the travails at sea the Mayflower went through. Back in its day MGM had a huge water tank that was used for all the sea sagas filmed there. Occasionally other studios rented it out, the facility was that good. Tracy has been there before when he was in Captains Courageous in spirit so to speak.Players like Van Johnson, Lowell Gilmore, Dawn Addams, Noel Drayton, Barry Jones, Kathleen Lockhart play some of the Pilgrim names come down from historical legend. Leo Genn is William Bradford, author of the Mayflower Compact which is cited interminably now by fundamentalist TV reverends as proof of our Christian heritage. Genn who rivaled Ronald Colman as possessor of the most beautiful speaking voice in the English speaking world would be a pleasure to listen to reading the Erie County phone book.My favorite in this is young Tommy Ivo who played William Button the only voyager on the Mayflower to die at sea. His death scene is a heart string tugging experience.Not the real story of the Mayflower voyage, Plymouth Adventure is still good entertainment and a stirring tribute to those who formalized the giving of thanks and the reasons they had to be thankful.

rockinghorse Spencer Tracey must have hated this movie. He sure played the part as if he hated it, and I can hardly blame him. His captain is an angry man who hates all his passengers except Gene Tierney, whom he seduces away from her husband. This may be realistic, though it's difficlut to tell. Would a Puritan woman have been so repressed that she goes for a rough man like the captain instead of her equally repressed husband? So she makes everyone thorougly miserable by killing herself. I can't remember whether this is before or after the passengers throw a party for the captain, who made no secret of the fact that he'd really rather they'd all drowned. All except Gene Tierney, of course.I wonder whether Spencer Tracey was as angry as the captain or as bored as the audience. We all have different tastes. I don't think suicide is in the least romantic, but an awful lot of people do.

dbdumonteil Fairly entertaining adventure yarn,with too much resorting to voice-over. There are two very good moments:the storm -Van Johnson will have known two in the space of 2 years;he'll be on the Caine during the typhoon(the Caine mutiny 1954)- and the little boy who dies with the bird (Noah's dove)in his hand.He ,too,had flown too far from home.Spencer Tracy has a tailor-made part:the grumpy captain with a heart of gold.Gene Tierney's grace and beauty supply the love interest.Her death is quite romantic.The film is somewhat too short and the building of the village and the first winter are botched.An interesting scene shows the birth of a democracy and ideas that 1789 French revolution will rekindle.