Northwest Passage (film)

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Northwest Passage

Directed by	King Vidor
Produced by	Hunt Stromberg
Written by	Kenneth Roberts
Starring	Spencer Tracy
Music by	Herbert Strothart
Cinematography	William V. Skall/Sidey Wagner
Editing by	Conrad A. Nervig
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn Mayer
Release date(s)	February 23, 1940
Running time	125 minutes
Language	English
IMDb profile

Northwest Passage is a 1940 film, starring Spencer Tracy, Robert Young, Walter Brennan, Ruth Hussey, and others. It is based on a novel by Kenneth Roberts titled Northwest Passage (1937).

It is set in the late 18th century during the French and Indian War (as the Seven Years' War in North America is usually known in the US). It gives an account of an attack by Rogers' Rangers on Saint-François, Quebec, a settlement of the Abenakis, an American Indian tribe. The purpose of the raid is to revenge the many attacks on British settlers and reduce the capability of the warriors of the village from carrying out future attacks.

The title is something of a misnomer, since this film is a truncated version of the original story, and only at the end do we find that Rogers and his men are about to go on a search for the Northwest Passage.

Some viewers^{[citation needed]} criticized the depiction of American Indians as racist and extreme, even by the standards of Hollywood at the time. This treatment, however, mirrors the book which was highly regarded for its historical research and accuracy.

The movie was filmed in central Idaho, near Payette Lake and the city of McCall.