Reap The Wild Wind

This anachronistic, tackily studio-bound adventure film about 19th century ship wreckers in the Florida Keys is the one that Ray Milland (né Reginald Alfred John Truscott-Jones) claimed caused him to lose his hair because of the hot curling irons used to give him his foppish locks.

Hitherto the Welsh-born actor had usually played urbane city types in romantic comedies but here as a dashing gentleman (the kind or role that once would have gone to Errol Flynn or Douglas Fairbanks Jr.) he goes head-to-head with that salty dog, John Wayne, over the hand of Paulette Godard. Raymond Massey plays the villainous leader of the wreckers and their common enemy.

If you want to see what state-of-the-art special effects looked like in 1942 hang around towards the end of the film for the underwater diving scene with the giant octopus – it earned the film an Oscar but it is the only thing keeping it off the bottom of the harbour.

 

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