Northwest Passage (film)

Northwest Passage is a 1940 film in Technicolor, starring Spencer Tracy, Robert Young, Walter Brennan, Ruth Hussey, and others. The picture is based on a novel by Kenneth Roberts titled Northwest Passage 1937.

The film opens in the year 1759 with the arrival of Langdon Towne Robert Young in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The son of a cordage rope maker and ship rigger, he returns from Harvard University after being expelled for complaining about college food and drawing an unflattering picture of the President of Harvard College. Though disappointed, Langdons family greets him with love, as does Elizabeth Browne Ruth Hussey, the daughter of a noted clergyman. Elizabeths father Louis Hector is less welcoming, however, and denigrates Langdons aspirations to becoming a painter. That evening, while drinking in the local tavern with friend Sam Livermore Lester Matthews, Langdon makes indiscreet remarks disparaging Wiseman Clagett Montagu Love, the kings attorney, and the Indian agent, Sir William Johnson, unaware that Clagett is sitting in the next room with another official. Facing arrest for his comments, Langdon fights the two men with the help of Hunk Marriner Walter Brennan, a local woodsman and friend, before they both escape into the woods.As they flee westward, Langdon and Marriner stop in a backwoods tavern for something to drink. There they meet a man in a green uniform who treats them to a drink called Flip which is similar to hot buttered rum, after they help him with a drunk American Indian. After a night of drinking, the two men wake up at Fort Crown Point, where they are told that the man they had met was Major Rogers Spencer Tracy, the commander of Rogers Rangers. Needing Langdons mapmaking skills, Rogers recruits the two men for his latest expedition, one to destroy the hostile Abenakis tribe and their town of St. Francis far to the north. ........

Source: Wikipedia