Wake of the Red Witch

A captain (John Wayne) fights his boss over a woman (Gail Russell) and a fortune in gold.

Wake of the Red Witch is a train wreck of a film. From the promotional posters featuring a strapping, shirtless John Wayne behind a ship’s wheel, to the bizarre ending, the entire affair is a disaster, albeit one which can’t help but elicit a morbid curiosity.

The script is an uneven mess of flashback sequences and plot threads that never pay off, resulting in a film that feels as though it was made up by the filmmakers as they went along. Did I mention John Wayne fights a giant rubber octopus? You think he’d have learned after Reap the Wild Wind.

Still, the film is watchable, if only due to some good music and the Duke’s presence. Nathan Scott delivers a rousing score, with some great moments like when a drunken, menacing Wayne is advancing on Gail Russell, and for his part, Wayne tries really hard to carry this circus and almost pulls it off, though by the end you get the feeling even he had lost faith in the picture.

The whole thing is a real shame, since Wayne and director Edward Ludwig’s previous collaboration, The Fighting Seabees showed a lot of promise, as did Wayne and co-star Gail Russell’s, Angel and the Badman, but nothing could overcome this crazy script.

On a final note, John Wayne’s production company, Batjac, took its name from this picture, perhaps as a grim reminder of the kind of film not to make.