1953 - THUNDER BAY, not one of the better James Stewart/Anthony Mann films.

The third collaboration between James Stewart and director Anthony Mann was not one of their best.  Stewart plays an oil wildcatter who raises money to set up an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico to "drill baby drill" because as Stewart says, "America needs oil."  However the shrimp fishermen aren't crazy about the oil explorers drilling into their shrimp beds.  There lies the contrived conflict.

This is a mediocre film at best.  The chief offender is the very poor script.  Stewart falls in love with the head shrimp fisherman's pretty daughter played by Joanna Dru one of the blandest performers of the 1950's.  Dru plays a bitter woman who has been "used" by men in the past whatever that means. Their romance is very forced.  Anyway the actors go through the motions with this story for the most part.  James Stewart always brought a kind of integrity to the films he appeared in this one is no different.  Stewart's oil drilling buddy is played by Dan Duryea who always seemed to play weaselly little bad guys especially in some of Fritz Lang's films.  Duryea was always fun to watch in the many films he showed up in throughout his career.  He worked with Stewart for the last time in the excellent Flight of the Phoenix.

 

Anthony Mann had a weak script and apparently knew it.  But Mann and his cinematographer William Daniels managed some nice location photography in Louisiana and the Gulf which is about the only reason to even give this film a look.

 

Stewart and Mann were a good team for a while but their best films were the five westerns they made together which are kind of minor classics in the genre.

The film was written by Borden Chase and John Michael Hayes, the running time is 103 minutes.