"The Wake of the Red Witch" is a curious film in that it stars John Wayne as a villain, or at least as something closer to a villain than to the sort of clean-cut characters Wayne usually played, or even to his flawed heroes in films like "The Searchers" and "The Shootist". The story is based upon what the opening credits call the "famous best- selling" novel by Garland Roark. (Well it might still have been famous in 1948, only two years after it was published, but since then both it and its author have sunk into obscurity). It is a melodramatic seafaring yarn which owes something to Joseph Conrad. Wayne's character Captain Ralls is a ship's captain in the Dutch East Indies during the 1860s. When we first meet him he is preparing to intentionally wreck his own ship, the "Red Witch", which is carrying a valuable cargo of gold bullion, by grounding it on a reef. After he does so he is called before a court of inquiry, but before the court can reach its verdict the case is dropped by the ship's owner, Mayrant Sidneye.
In 1950 Alfred Hitchcock caused some controversy by including a "lying flashback" in "Stage Fright". Flashbacks had traditionally been used to reveal the true situation, so Hitchcock's use of the device to show one character's false account of events, without revealing to the audience until later in the film that this account was indeed false, came as a surprise to many. Here, however, in a film made two years earlier, director Edward Ludwig does something almost equally controversial. He presents us with two contradictory flashbacks; one is told from the viewpoint of Sidneye and the other, although it is narrated by a secondary character, Sidneye's niece Teleia Van Schreeven, essentially tells us Ralls's side of the story. It is already clear that the two men are enemies of long standing, and the two flashbacks, taken together, explain the reason for their enmity, why Ralls sank the Red Witch and why Sidneye dropped the proceedings against him. The full story is too complicated to set out here, but it revolves around their rivalry for the love of the same woman, Angelique.
The highly melodramatic plot, in fact, gets a bit too convoluted at times and can be difficult to follow. The film has other weaknesses as well. Wayne never seems completely at home playing Ralls, a man driven at least in part by jealousy, greed and desire revenge, and considerably more complex than the average John Wayne hero. Gail Russell, who had also starred with Wayne the previous year in "Angel and the Badman", is a bit insipid as the lovely Angelique. The scene where Ralls has to fight a giant octopus, which is guarding a treasure of pearls, is horribly unconvincing. (This scene may have inspired a similar scene in another seafaring yarn from a few years later, "Pearl of the South Seas", which features an even more ludicrously unconvincing giant octopus).
On the other hand, Luther Adler is good as the greedy and obsessive shipping magnate Sidneye, and Ludwig's unusual narrative style does enough to hold our interest. "The Wake of the Red Witch" is far from being a classic of the cinema, but it still remains watchable today. 6/10
In 1950 Alfred Hitchcock caused some controversy by including a "lying flashback" in "Stage Fright". Flashbacks had traditionally been used to reveal the true situation, so Hitchcock's use of the device to show one character's false account of events, without revealing to the audience until later in the film that this account was indeed false, came as a surprise to many. Here, however, in a film made two years earlier, director Edward Ludwig does something almost equally controversial. He presents us with two contradictory flashbacks; one is told from the viewpoint of Sidneye and the other, although it is narrated by a secondary character, Sidneye's niece Teleia Van Schreeven, essentially tells us Ralls's side of the story. It is already clear that the two men are enemies of long standing, and the two flashbacks, taken together, explain the reason for their enmity, why Ralls sank the Red Witch and why Sidneye dropped the proceedings against him. The full story is too complicated to set out here, but it revolves around their rivalry for the love of the same woman, Angelique.
The highly melodramatic plot, in fact, gets a bit too convoluted at times and can be difficult to follow. The film has other weaknesses as well. Wayne never seems completely at home playing Ralls, a man driven at least in part by jealousy, greed and desire revenge, and considerably more complex than the average John Wayne hero. Gail Russell, who had also starred with Wayne the previous year in "Angel and the Badman", is a bit insipid as the lovely Angelique. The scene where Ralls has to fight a giant octopus, which is guarding a treasure of pearls, is horribly unconvincing. (This scene may have inspired a similar scene in another seafaring yarn from a few years later, "Pearl of the South Seas", which features an even more ludicrously unconvincing giant octopus).
On the other hand, Luther Adler is good as the greedy and obsessive shipping magnate Sidneye, and Ludwig's unusual narrative style does enough to hold our interest. "The Wake of the Red Witch" is far from being a classic of the cinema, but it still remains watchable today. 6/10