Hollywood has always been famous for the old switcheroo.  They'll buy a novel or a play and by the time the picture comes out, precious little is recognizable from it's source material.  If you're a DeMille you even get to change the bible for dramatic purposes.  Sometimes, they are content to just change the title because the brain trust has decided that story is okay but the name needs a little more zing.

Paramount's 1941 Caribbean potboiler "Bahama Passage" is a case of the latter. 



It may very well  be a case of the former too - I've never read the book.  Visually spectacular it was made in Technicolor on location in Grand Turk, a rarity for the time.  It starred beautiful Madeline Carroll, a mostly shirtless Sterling Hayden and included an 18 year old Dorothy Dandridge in a bit part as a (you guessed it) maid.


If the story had been as compelling as the scenery, it might be more remembered today.  Come to think of it, if they had kept the original title, I'm certain it would have been more remembered today:

Sterling Hayden "tinkering", 1941