TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST (1946)

The title retains some currency.  Jack London, right?  A coming-of-age sea yarn?*  It’s actually something of a muckraking ship’s journal by author Richard Dana on his travels under tack-hard Captain Thompson (Howard Da Silva), a commercial ship’s captain who let his crews suffer, even die, to break speed records.  Here adapted from the book’s controversial call for sailors’ rights and (of all things) religious instruction to cleverly bring aboard MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY tropes & action (everything but the breadfruit).  Alan Ladd’s a spoiled rich kid, son of the ship’s owner, shanghaied by first-mate William Bendix.  Effete at first, Ladd warms up to his mates (and they to him) under harsh conditions & floggings, especially once Dana (Brian Donlevy) notes him helping teen stowaway Darryl Hickman.  Paramount even found a way to bring a lady passenger on ship for love interest.  Writer/producer Seton I. Miller, helmer John Farrow & much of the ship's crew make the first half of the film pacey, exciting stuff.  But Farrow’s abilities are over-taxed in a third act & epilogue that need Michael Curtiz and that Warner Bros. water-tank soundstage.*

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Speaking of Jack London, Michael Curtiz & Warners, maybe you were thinking of THE SEA WOLF.  Filmed at least three times; best in 1941. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-sea-wolf-1941.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Ladd was certainly fit at the time, but more whippet than our poster’s heavyweight.