THUNDER BAY

 

In my last post, on the Criterion Blu-ray of WINCHESTER '73, I mentioned that one of the extras on the disc was a program concerning the films that Anthony Mann made at Universal. During this program it was stated that the non-Western films that Mann directed starring James Stewart--THUNDER BAY, THE GLENN MILLER STORY, and STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND--were titles that the filmmaker wasn't all that excited about. The program suggests that Mann helmed these features more as a favor to Stewart, and as a way to stay in the actor's good graces. 

The program also states that THUNDER BAY--a tale set in 1946 that details the efforts of an engineer played by Stewart to build an off-shore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico--was made mainly due to the fact that James Stewart had major investments in oil companies, and he wanted to show how important their operations were. I had never heard or read about this opinion, and it made me want to watch THUNDER BAY again. 

I had THUNDER BAY on DVD already--it's included on a three-disc set of James Stewart films released by Universal years ago. I watched it after getting the set, but it didn't make much of an impression on me, and I had basically forgotten about it since. THUNDER BAY is probably the least known of the Anthony Mann-James Stewart collaborations. It never seems to be shown on cable TV, even on the retro channels. 

THUNDER BAY tells the story of Steve Martin (James Stewart), a man determined to prove his ideas about an off-shore oil rig can work in reality. After getting out of the army, Steve and his partner Johnny Gambi (Dan Duryea) travel to Louisiana, with almost no money left, to meet with a prospective financial backer, a millionaire oil man named MacDonald (Jay C. Flippen). Steve convinces MacDonald to provide him money to start building an oil rig platform off the Louisiana coast. The project angers the local Cajun community--they believe that the rig will affect the local shrimping industry. Steve and Johnny's interactions with the locals don't help matters, and the two men start to grow apart due to Steve's hard-charging workaholic ways. The board of directors of MacDonald's company doesn't have faith in the project, and wants to stop it--but Steve is determined to see it through, no matter what. 

One major issue with THUNDER BAY is that while it's easy to be involved in watching Jimmy Stewart going after bad guys in the Old West, it's hard to be engaged in the building of an oil rig. It doesn't help that Stewart's character Steve is something of a jerk. He's bossy, touchy, and he expects everyone to do what he wants without question. One understands why Steve acts the way he does, but that doesn't make him any more sympathetic. A couple of times in the film Stewart makes speeches about how important it is to provide oil for the modern world, but these scenes fail to give much inspiration. 

The portrayal of the Cajun community that opposes Steve and his plans is another major weakness. The Cajuns are played by such actors as Gilbert Roland, Antonio Moreno, and Fortunio Bonanova, and they come off as Italian/South American/gypsy ethnic types instead of believable natives of Louisiana. They all act "colorful", so colorful that they become caricatures--they're almost backward peasants. (During the climax, the Cajuns go off in their boats and try and storm the oil rig as if they were superstitious villagers in a Universal monster movie.) Steve and Johnny fall in love with the daughters of Antonio Moreno's boat captain, and the women (played by Joanne Dru and Marcia Henderson) act and look as Cajun as Alec Guinness. 

Despite what one would think by looking at the poster above, there isn't much action in THUNDER BAY. There's a storm, an attempt to blow up the oil rig by Dan Duryea's romantic rival, a bar brawl between the oil rig workers and the fishermen, and a few other confrontations, but these sequences are very predictable. The climax is a big letdown--it's one of those contrived happy endings where everyone's problems are wrapped up way too neatly and too easily. The relationship between James Stewart and Joanne Dru has a soap opera aspect to it--it's established that Dru's character had left Louisiana for a few years and gotten hurt by various men, so she has a chip on her shoulder. The result is the leading man and woman of the story both have chips on their shoulders, and they both are not very appealing. 

James Stewart more than succeeds in showing the driven, obsessive nature of Steve. (I wonder if Anthony Mann realized how unlikable the character of Steve was, and, instead of trying to soften it, just let it go.) Dan Duryea has a nice rapport with Stewart, but since his Johnny is a fun-loving, gregarious type, one expects that he and Steve will clash--and of course they do. 

THUNDER BAY was Universal's first film released in widescreen, and it also had a stereophonic soundtrack. One wonders why the studio didn't pick a much more exciting and expansive story for such technical highlights. The movie was shot in actual Louisiana locations, and on a real off-shore oil rig, which does give it some flavor. It's not a badly-made film, but one can tell that Anthony Mann's heart wasn't really in it. THUNDER BAY doesn't hold up anywhere near as well as the other Mann-Stewart collaborations, and those with a 21st Century mindset would no doubt consider the main character of the story a villain.