Anna Christie
The Long Voyage Home
Screening on Film
A Swedish sailor wastes his earnings on alcohol while his family awaits his return from the sea. Silent screen star Blanche Sweet plays the tragic sailor's daughter who reunites with her father in New York, only to cause more friction in their relationship when she falls for a young seaman. Among the many film adaptations of his work, Eugene O'Neill cited John Griffith Wray's interpretation of Anna Christie as the best.
One of John Ford's greatest and most overlooked films, this moody, melancholic rendition of four Eugene O'Neill one-act plays focuses on sailors lost in lonely life on the sea. Featuring an ensemble of character actors including Thomas Mitchell, John Qualen, Barry Fitzgerald, and Mildred Natwick, the film features an out-of-character performance from John Wayne as a young, gawky Swede who remains sheltered from the torturous shipboard life by his crewmates. The extraordinary camerawork from Gregg Toland, just prior to his work on Citizen Kane, provides an appropriate counterbalance to Ford's sentimentality.