Slattery’s Hurricane *** (1949, Richard Widmark, Linda Darnell, Veronica Lake, John Russell, Gary Merrill) – Classic Movie Review 6692

Richard Widmark scores strongly as Lieutenant Will Slattery USNR, the shifty, selfish and seedy-seeming anti-hero of director André De Toth’s 1949 Florida drug-smuggling adventure movie Slattery’s Hurricane. Studio 20th Century Fox had wanted Tyrone Power, but he’d have been all wrong for it.

Widmark plays the former World War Two US Navy pilot, now employed by a Miami civilian company as a weather-tracking pilot, who flies for the drug-smuggling gang and makes love to a hoodlum’s secretary (Veronica Lake), the wife of his best friend. But old flame Linda Darnell, now married to a flight lieutenant (John Russell), puts him back on the right path and he becomes a hero in the raging hurricane of the title, which he is battling as the story unfolds in flashbacks.

Both Darnell as Aggie Hobson and Lake as Dolores Grieves are also excellent value, and Charles G Clarke’s finely photographed, atmospheric Florida scenery and the exciting hurricane effects (well done for their day) are further assets in an involving movie.

The original story is by Herman Wouk, and the screenplay is co-written by Herman Wouk and Richard Murphy, and Wouk turned it into a novel afterwards.

Also in the cast are Gary Merrill, Walter Kingsford, Raymond Greenleaf, Stanley Waxman, Joe De Santis, Morris Ankrum, John Davidson, Ruth Clifford, Joseph Forte, William Hawes, Don Hicks, Ted Jordan, Harry Lauter, Norman Leavitt, Lee MacGregor, Howard Negley, Maudie Prickett, Gene Reynolds, Grandon Rhgodes, Frank Richards, John Wald, Amelita Ward, Dick Wessel, Kenny Williams and David Wolfe.

Slattery’s Hurricane is directed by André De Toth, runs 83 minutes, is a 20th Century Fox release, is shot in black and white by Charles G Clarke, is produced by William Perlberg, is scored by Cyril J Mockridge, and is designed by Lyle R Wheeler and Albert Hogsett.

Veronica Lake was born as Constance Frances Marie Ockleman on November 14, 1922 and died in 1973, aged 50.

The 4′ 11½” Veronica Lake was then married to De Toth (13 December 1944 – 2 June 1952), divorced, with two children. It was her first film as a freelance after Paramount dumped her from her contract in 1948. Veronica Lake was born as Constance Frances Marie Ockleman on November 14, 1922 and died in 1973, aged 50.

Wouk was born on May 27 1915. He is the writer of Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Caine Mutiny, which became the 1954 film The Caine Mutiny. He served in the US Navy as Executive Officer on destroyer-minesweepers.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6692

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