wes-connors This is the story of how the English pilgrims journeyed over the treacherous Atlantic waters, to form their colony at Plymouth, Massachusetts. These were the "seeds" that grew into The United States of America. Helming the famous "Mayflower" ship of colonists is grouchy Spencer Tracy (as Christopher Jones). Mr. Tracy doesn't let his passengers know they are headed for New England, instead of Virginia. But, in the end, the local "savages" are more friendly up North, we are told...How these adventurers survived the hellish conditions is revealed to be due to Tracy's forbidden love for the wife of passenger pilgrim Leo Genn, a Godly-clean and good-looking Gene Tierney (as Dorothy Bradford). Tracy gets drunk and tries to have "his way" with her, but she apparently isn't prone to rape fantasies. They continue to make "goo-goo eyes" at each other, though. Meanwhile, carpenter Van Johnson (as John Alden) ogles pretty Dawn Addams (as Priscilla Mullins)...Here is a prime example of a film that would seem to have everything going for it - but the story floats like a stone. Tracy and Mr. Johnson saw their 1951 "Quigley Box Office Star" positions plummet from #10 (Tracy) and #24 (Johnson), after setting sail. Director Clarence Brown retired. If you do hang around until they reach land, you'll see Mr. Brown and photographer William Daniels create a gorgeous location. Lloyd Bridges (as Coppin) is one who doesn't look like a fish out of water.**** Plymouth Adventure (11/14/52) Clarence Brown ~ Spencer Tracy, Gene Tierney, Van Johnson, Lloyd Bridges

Robert J. Maxwell Kids, I was compelled to check the "spoilers" box because you -- lacking in curiosity as you are -- might not know that the "Mayflower" was the ship on which the Pilgrims sailed to Boston in 1620. (That is, 1620 AD.) Henry Cabot Lodge was one of the passengers. (Well, he might as well have been.) The reason the Pilgrims were moving from Plymouth to Plymouth Rock was that they'd been subject to religious persecution in England. They didn't feel that the Church of England had moved far enough away from the sybaritic splendor of the highly ritualized Roman Catholic Church. It's a little complicated, but that's the general idea.Well, it was a perilous trip across the North Atlantic in 1620. They used sailing ships in those days, and they were almighty slow, so people ran out of food and water and stuff like that. Not like the today's QE2, where I left the hair salon with a pompadour that made me look like Donald Trump -- proud and unashamed. I'm not sure the British cuisine on the QE2 was that much of an improvement over the Mayflower's, but so be it. Boy, the Mayflower passengers were lucky to make it at all. But they did, and they gave us the American Revolution, the Constitution, baked beans, four presidents, and ultimately this movie.This is an MGM product so you get solid-as-a-rock family entertainment with magnificent production values. The special effects are fine. There is an exciting storm at sea that threatens to destroy the Mayflower. (Every story of a ship at sea must include a scene of a storm.) All the studio's talent is deployed, including a stellar cast. Spencer Tracy is Captain Jones, skipper of the Mayflower. Gene Tierney is the pouty-lipped married passenger whom he loves but whom he treats as an ordinary doxy. In supporting roles are rough sailor Lloyd Bridges, solemn preacher Leo Genn, civilian carpenter Van Johnson, sturdy diarist and narrator John Dehner, and reliable stalwarts like John Dierkes.There are two problems with the movie, and they're both pretty big.The casting decisions are inexplicable. Spencer Tracy as a consistently contemptuous, cynical, money-grubbing, underhanded Captain Queeg with glands? Hardly. Spencer Tracy is a man who carries moral authority along with his common sense Americanism. He's the firm, authoritative, slyly wisecracking, but empathic boss you wish you had.And Van Johnson as an unemployed carpenter saying lines like, "I had hoped to find me a berth for the night, sir"? Not a bit of it. Van Johnson is the optimistic, rosy-cheeked guy next door. He's polite, cheerful, and in love with Phyllis Thaxter. In any case, he's a lead, not a supporting player.That's the casting problem. Then there's the problem of the plot. How do you fill up an hour or more of a ship at sea full of relatively dull people? I mean, they're not pirates or mutineers. So you invent an intrigue between the gruff Tracy and the winsome Tierney that struck me as completely lacking in credibility. Tracy is not a romantic lead. He's short and rather dumpy and, though handsome in a manly way, looks nothing like Cary Grant. Tierney suffers because she is torn between her love for the adamantine Tracy and the pious Genn. She finally offs herself. Actually, she didn't. Two people died during the voyage, both of illness.I will bet, though, that there was genuine drama aboard the Mayflower. Here's why. There were about 130 people aboard, including both passengers and crew, and the ship itself was about 100 feet long. There was also every bit of cargo that a new community would need in a demanding new environment. One hundred feet is peanuts. The "tween decks", where many slept, was a space probably about four feet high. The people must have been piled on top of one another but you'd never know it. Space and violations of space are not very dramatic. We watch scenes of Van Johnson showing Dawn Addams where he goes when he wants to get away from things and be alone. It's the ship's rope locker, and it's about the size of the Garden Court Restaurant in San Francisco's Sheraton Palace Hotel. Kids, Googling will lead to goggling. You should have LUNCH there if possible. Try the cottage cheese. Tell them I sent you.Anyhow there's no gainsaying that MGM was the biggest most powerful studio in Hollywood at the time this was released, but that doesn't mean that somebody didn't make a couple of big mistakes.

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.

sky3walker Where is the masterpiece American film on this dramatic voyage and settlement of the founders of our democracy? Plymouth Adventure, the best of its kind, has many of the virtues of great American studio work (convincing mise en scene, great ship, vivid action [the storm], fine acting [try to ignore the hobbled accents], and smooth story continuity) and can be enjoyed because of all that, but it never conveys a sense of the agonized desperation and profound spiritual quest of the dissenters. Perhaps Gene Tierney is just too beautfiul, perhaps the costumes are just too sparkling, and certainly the tragic affair with the Captain is better suited to a Douglas Sirk melodrama. For a different account, one can view Mayflower (Anthony Hopkins version), but that errs on the side of political correctness, and drab plotting, and tub-sails a low-budget toy Mayflower. We await the great film about the adventure of these heroic common folks to whom we owe so much.