Reap the Wild Wind

Reap the Wild Wind was a serialized story written by Thelma Strabel in 1940 for The Saturday Evening Post, which was the basis for the 1942 film starring Ray Milland, John Wayne, Paulette Goddard, Robert Preston, and Susan Hayward, and directed by Cecil B. DeMille, his second picture to be filmed in color. The movie, released shortly after the United States entry into World War II, was a swashbuckling adventure set in the 1840s along the Florida coast, and was wildly successful.

As the film opens, Loxi Claiborne Paulette Goddard is running a salvage business started by her deceased father. A hurricane is just passing through the Key West area, leaving behind at least one wreck on the nearby shoals. The Jubilee founders and Loxi and other salvagers race to claim the cargo. Not arriving first, Loxi and her crew rescue the captain, Jack Stuart John Wayne, but do not share in the salvage rights. It appears that the first salvor on the scene, King Cutler Raymond Massey, may have actually planned the wreck.Nursing Jack back to health, Loxi falls in love with him. When she visits Charleston with her cousin Drusilla Susan Hayward, Loxi schemes to win a plum captains position for Jack by seducing Steve Tolliver Ray Milland, who is running the sailing ship line Jack works for. Steve falls for Loxi and returns with her to Key West to investigate the truth about Jacks shipwreck. ........

Source: Wikipedia