The Sea Wolf (1941) on Netflix
Approved19411h 40mAdventureDrama
After their ferry sinks, Humphrey Van Weyden and Ruth Webster are pulled aboard the Ghost, a seal-hunting ship. Its captain, Wolf Larsen, will not turn back to port.
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- Netflix4.4/5
- IMDb7.5/105,147 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes100%
Trailer
Plot summary
The Ghost, a seal-hunting ship in the North Atlantic, pulls Humphrey Van Weyden and Ruth Webster, an escaped convict, from the water after their ferry collides with another vessel and sinks. Captain Wolf Larsen refuses to head back to port. He sets Van Weyden, a fiction writer, to work in the galley under Cooky, the ship's cook, and he abuses the crew. In his cabin he argues that man is at bottom an amoral animal and that moral rules are constructs with no hold on life at sea. He predicts that the crew's company will change Van Weyden's character, since no man among them values anything above his own gain.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Sea Wolf (1941)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Thirteen minutes cut from The Sea Wolf in 1947 were recovered when 35mm nitrate elements were found at the Museum of Modern Art; the reassembled original cut was screened at the 2018 Turner Classic Movies Film Festival.
- George Raft backed out of the part of George Leach just as filming was about to begin, after five days of negotiation over changes he wanted, and was put on suspension.
- Robert Rossen's re-draft made the captain a symbol of fascism and split the novel's idealistic hero into an intellectual dishwasher and a rebellious seaman, adding a love interest for Ida Lupino.
- The film's fog came from the studio's new fog-making machine, installed in the largest soundstage, big enough to hold full-scale ship deck sets.
- Warner Bros. cut many political items from the script during production, after Rossen added scenes for the seaman and his love interest at Lupino's urging.
- The Canadian premiere was held at the Capitol Theatre in London, Ontario, because studio executive Jack L. Warner and cast member Gene Lockhart were born in the city and Alexander Knox had attended university there.
