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Northwest Passage Overview:

Northwest Passage (1940) was a Adventure - Drama Film directed by King Vidor, Jack Conway (uncredited) and W.S. Van Dyke (uncredited) and produced by Hunt Stromberg.

Academy Awards 1940 --- Ceremony Number 13 (source: AMPAS)

AwardRecipientResult
Best CinematographySidney Wagner, William V. SkallNominated
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Northwest Passage Quotes:

Maj. Robert Rogers: [referring to Langdon's abdominal wound] Are ypu hurt bad?
Langdon Towne: First thing I've had in my stomach in days.
[last lines]
Elizabeth Browne: [standing alongside Langdon Towne as Major Robert Rogers and his rangers march into the distance] Is there, Langdon? Is there a Northwest Passage?
Langdon Towne: Who knows.
[pause]
Langdon Towne: It's every man's dream to find a short route to his heart's desire. If the major dreams long enough, he'll find it.
Elizabeth Browne: Will we hear from him?
Langdon Towne: Hear from him?
[pause]
Langdon Towne: Every time we look across the river we'll hear his voice calling us through the wind. He'll be within us, Elizabeth - wherever we are or he may be - for that man will never die.
Langdon Towne: [Slapping at mosquitoes as they walk through wetlands] Mosquitoes don't bite you, do they?
Hunk Marriner: Nope.
Langdon Towne: You put something on that keeps them off?
Hunk Marriner: Rancid bear grease. They hate the stink worse than I do.
Langdon Towne: [Smelling some of the bear grease that Hunk offers him] thanks. I'll take the mosquitoes.
Cap Huff: [to Langton] If you're tryin' to drink yourself outta lovesickness, why don't you switch to rum? We've got some rum that'll burn the knots out of a pine plank.
Langdon Towne: [Drunkenly] Bring 'em me.
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Northwest Passage Facts
Members of Roger's Rangers fought on the American side in the initial battles of the Revolutionary War, Lexington and Concord, in 1775.
In 1938, Lana Turner was set to play the siren.
According to historical accounts, 204 Roger's Rangers left for St. Francis and 100 survived to return home.
Kenneth Roberts, the author of the best-selling 1936 novel on which the film is based, described Rogers Rangers as wearing "green buckskin" clothing. The initial attempts made at dyeing the buckskin uniforms made them a bright Kelly green. They were subsequently re-dyed to attain the forest green color seen in the finished film. The uniforms were occasionally "touched up" with paint spray guns, while being worn, with the actors wearing protective bags on their heads - as seen in Northward, Ho!, a period making of.
The most demanding scene for the actors involved the filming of the "human chain" employed by the Rangers to cross a treacherous river. The actors themselves had to do the shots without the benefit of stunt doubles. The sequence was begun at Payette Lake in Idaho but had to be completed in the studio tank because the lake was far too dangerous. For Spencer Tracy, who once complained that the physical labors required of actors "wouldn't tax an embryo," it was his most difficult shoot to that point, surpassing even the taxing ocean scenes of his Oscar-winning Captains Courageous.
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