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JON HALL stars as a hot-tempered native on a fictional South Seas island called Manakoora, run by a strict martinet of a governor, played by RAYMOND MASSEY. After petty theft and a brawl, Hall is hauled into jail and given a strict sentence that separates him from his new wife, a native girl Marama played by DOROTHY LAMOUR.

Hall and Lamour are both in their physical prime. Hunky Hall is shown to advantage in the central role in a series of adventurous escapes from prison, climaxed by his authority in leading some of the islanders to safety during the climactic storm. Close-ups magnify Lamour's sultry beauty and handsome Hall is likewise photographed like a Greek God in profile. Ford has directed a film rich in character and settings with some stunning B&W photography.

Aside from the leads, good character roles are abundant. RAYMOND MASSEY, MARY ASTOR (as his loyal wife), THOMAS MITCHELL (another one of his drunken doctor roles) and JOHN CARRADINE as a sadistic warden, are all memorable.

Escapist entertainment with a South Seas setting and two photogenic co-stars who would both move on to better things in the '40s. But Jon Hall never had a better role than he does here as Terangi, the resourceful man who dives off a steep cliff into the calm waters of an enchanted island paradise during one of his many escapes.

As for "the hurricane", it's so realistic that you have to see it to believe it. And all this was before CGI effects--a brilliant job.

Alfred Newman's exotic background music is woven around a theme later called "The Moon of Manakoora" and turned into a popular song for Dorothy Lamour to warble. After seeing her in this film, no wonder she became the sarong girl of the '40s.

Jon Hall, Dorothy Lamour and an excellent cast are all caught in "The Hurricane," a 1937 film and the first to win a Special Effects Oscar. The original novel was written by Jon Hall's uncle.

On the island of Manakoora, Terangi (Hall) and Marama (Lamour) marry amidst a happy celebration, though their happiness will be short-lived. Terangi must deliver cargo to Tahiti, though Marama has a premonition about the trip and warns him not to go.

While in Tahiti, he gets into a barroom fight and is sentenced to 6 months in prison. The governor of Manakoora, DeLaage (Raymond Massey), despite the urgings of his friends and his wife (Mary Astor) refuses to ask for Terangi to be brought back to Manakoora and put on parole.

Unable to endure a life with no freedom, and desperate to get back home, Terangi continually attempts to escape. Each time he does, 2 years are added to his sentence until he has to serve 16 years.

At last, Terangi escapes and makes his way back to his island, where he meets his daughter for the first time. Knowing that DeLaage will capture him and return him to Tahiti, islanders prepare to help the family sail to another island. But a hurricane (actually a typhoon) strikes.

Besides those mentioned, "The Hurricane" also stars Thomas Mitchell as the French doctor on Manakoora, C. Aubrey Smith as the local priest, Jerome Cowan as Terangi's captain, and John Carradine as a sadistic prison guard.

The effects are astounding and are a no-miss, particularly considering it is 1937! The tremendous winds, the rising waters, the trees falling, buildings collapsing - all magnificent.

John Ford did an excellent job of directing this film, which has racism as its underpinning - the prison sentence was the result of a so-called dark man hitting a white man; and DeLaage's patrician and cruel attitude has racism at the base of it

I disagree with one of the comments that states that Hall was a white-skinned movie star trying to pass himself off as a dark man; Hall's mother was Tahitian.

Dorothy Lamour, exotic and beautiful, has very little to do in this film except look frightened and lovely - you can count her lines on one hand.

Hall, a total hunk if there ever was one, has more to say and do but one is so distracted by his face and physique that it becomes difficult to pay attention to anything else. The acting burden falls to Mitchell, Massey, Astor, Carradine, and Cowan, who are terrific.

Ford isn't known for his tales of the sea, but obviously he was good at everything. He wouldn't see water again until the 1950s. Lamour carried on the sarong tradition in better roles, and Hall worked into the mid-'60s; at the age of 65, dying of cancer and in excruciating pain, he shot himself.

Highly recommended as a feast of skin and brilliant special effects.

It took John Ford another 18 years to get back to the south seas as a film location after his award winning The Hurricane. He had an incomplete trip with Mister Roberts in 1955, but then made it back for Donovan's Reef in 1963.

Both The Hurricane and Donovan's Reef deal with racism and have as their settings, French colonial possessions in the south Pacific. Of course Donovan's Reef takes a far more light hearted approach. In both films Ford feels that colonialism is at best a mixed blessing for the native populace.

Jon Hall is a happy and content resident of the small island of Manakoora with a new wife. He's a sailor by trade, first mate on a ship captained by Jerome Cowan. While in Tahiti he defends himself in a barroom brawl, but gets sentenced for assault because he struck a white man. An obnoxious lout with political influence. His lot is made worse with repeated attempts to escape adding time on his sentence and all kinds of torture, physical and psychological, by a cruel guard played by John Carradine.

Meanwhile back on Manakoora wife Dorothy Lamour gives birth to a child and Hall becomes something of a native folk hero. That's most unsettling to the Governor Raymond Massey. Massey is one uptight dude with a lot of issues. He says he's defending the law, but he knows he's defending the concept of white supremacy and that fact isn't escaping any of his peers including his own wife Mary Astor.

Thomas Mitchell got nominated for his performance as a doctor with a bit of a thirst problem on Manakoora. A decent man, he's revolted by a lot of what he sees. As is C. Aubrey Smith the priest. Both Mitchell and Smith take comfort where they can, Mitchell in booze, Smith in his Catholic faith. Mitchell lost to Joseph Schildkraut for Best Supporting Actor, but two years later won with essentially the same role in Stagecoach.

The Hurricane won the very first Oscar given out for Special Effects and the hurricane which should have been called a typhoon in that part of the world even today is something to see. You will not forget the fury of nature that destroys C. Aubrey Smith's church. This ain't your Wizard of Oz type storm.

Some parts are terribly corny with dialog handed to the actors in the form of declamations but overall a well directed and enjoyable film. The picture doesn't require any heavy lifting dramatically but Hall is fine in the lead, certainly a dashing protagonist and Dorothy of course looks great in her sarong. It's the supporting cast, a collection of dynamite character actors, that make this memorable. Any movie lucky enough to have Mary Astor, Thomas Mitchell, Jerome Cowan, Raymond Massey and John Carradine contributing their individual presence is worth seeing if only for them but this has good special effects, for the time, and a fun story to boot.

Sure, the leads are silly, and there's a great deal of mannered melodrama to endure, but don't overlook this. Academy Award nominations for Thomas Mitchell and Alfred Newman, and a well-deserved Oscar win for Thomas Moulton, the credited sound guy. The 10 minute Hurricane sequence plays entirely without music; just sound effects and scattered dialog, shouted over the wind and waves. You'll forget that the wind is ringing the church bell constantly through the storm, until the church is washed away and the bell sound is suddenly gone. The visual action and stunts are extraordinary and ahead of their time. I show this sequence to my film sound students, and I wish I could get it on DVD!

The story line of this movie gets a bit fanciful at times, but it doesn't get out of hand and the movie does not pretend to be anything it isn't, so I think most people well enjoy it.

There are several fine performances. My favorite is that of Raymond Massey as he is very convincing in the thankless role of a cold-hearted governer who towards the end shows a sadistic side and then, at the very end of the movie, shows that there is good in everybody.

Then there is the hurricane itself. Naturally I have not seen every movie ever made, but seeing how this movie predates the computer age the hurricane is surely the greatest special effects in movie history.

You will enjoy this movie more if you believe Jon Hall and Lamour are Polynesians. In fact, these people are John Ford constructs which is why Thomas Mitchell plays the amiable drunken doctor. But this is a John Ford movie about justice, survival, love and more. And if you accept it with a willing sense of disbelief it is a bit of fun. There are the usual stunning Ford visuals which he always seemed to do so effortlessly. He is a master of camera placement. His sailing scenes are perfect. At one point a boat raises and flys a sail called a "mule," on a schooner. You'll never see this again. But mostly it is a movie about which it is easy to take sides. Vicious, racist colonial Europeans versus the simple people of the islands. And in the end nature asserts her judgment over all the characters.

The South Seas island of Manikoora is alive with happiness on the day of the wedding of Terangi and Marama. Terangi has his honeymoon cut short, when he has to sail to deliver cargo to Tahiti. Terangi's visit to Tahiti becomes hell when he slugs a man in a barroom brawl and is unjustly sentenced to six months in prison mainly because he as a native islander hit a white man. Terangi repeatedly tries to escape and is caught each time, only to add more years to his sentence. Back on Manikoora, Governor De Laage makes no effort to release Terangi because in his mind Terangi is a law breaker and deserves to be punished, despite the words of his wife, priest, and island doctor to the otherwise. One night Terangi does manage to escape, even though he unknowingly knocks a guard to the ground, killing him. Father Paul rescues Terangi from the sea and arranges to meet Marama and their daughter Tita. When De Laage learns that Terangi is back on the island, he makes a determined effort to apprehend him, not realizing one of the most devastating hurricanes is coming to strike, which may destroy the whole island. A very good movie. I was expecting much footage of hurricane destruction, I didn't realize the plot aspect of the prison, which was a lot more than plot filler. Hall and Lamour were good, even though I enjoyed their movies from the 40's a lot better. Massey gives one of the best performances of his long career as De Laage, as a heartless and sadistic fellow. The special effects are amazing, even by 2004 standards. Beautiful on-location photography as well. Rating, 9.

The Isle of Manakoora in the South Seas is an idyllic place. Swaying palm trees & warm ocean waters enhance the enchantment. The contented population idolize Terangi (Jon Hall), one of their native sons, first mate on an important trading ship & new husband of Marama (Dorothy Lamour), daughter of the Chief. But when Terangi falls foul of the laws on Tahiti, and is cruelly imprisoned there, only the 'wind that blows away the world' -THE HURRICANE - can scour away the injustices heaped upon him.

This is one of the great films of the 1930's - pure escapist entertainment. It creates a place that never existed, in this case Manakoora, and makes it seem totally real to the viewer. It's also a superb example of the magic performed by the folks in Hollywood's special effects departments. The storm which climaxes the movie is unsurpassed in its cinematic power & emotion.

Lamour & Hall are both excellent in their roles and are totally believable in the tribulations they endure as part of the plot. Lamour was kidded for the rest of her life about the 'sarong parts' she played in, but there was no reason to be ashamed for participation in this classic. As for Hall, (whose mother was Tahitian and whose uncle, James Norman Hall, wrote the story on which THE HURRICANE was based) this was his finest role; he was never to achieve the major stardom he deserved. Suffering from cancer, he died a suicide in 1979 at the age of 66.

The rest of the cast is equally topnotch: Raymond Massey, the stiff-necked Governor; Mary Astor, his sympathetic wife; Thomas Mitchell, the island's alcoholic doctor; Al Kikume, the native Chief; Jerome Cowan, a friendly captain; John Carradine, the satanic Tahitian prison warden; and marvelous old Sir C. Aubrey Smith, as the island's wise priest.

A couple of small quibbles: Would an island as small as Manakoora really have its own French Governor? And shouldn't this Pacific Ocean tropical storm more accurately be called a typhoon? Hurricanes are generally found in the Atlantic Ocean.

For a film that's billed as a romance movie, this has got a surprising amount of good suspense and action. It's really an adventure story with a romance angle. It's also very interesting and a good film with decent special effects, at least for when this was made.

It's almost a "Count Of Monte Cristo" story with an innocent man imprisoned on an island and finally succeeding in escaping. However, in this story, the escapee "Terangi" (John Hall) also has to battle a hurricane after escaping!

The film starts slowly in the first half hour, but stick with it, it's worth it. The story becomes very involving as "Terangi" begins his battle against "the law," which is not pictured very flattering here. In that respect, the film is ahead of its time with its anti-government message. However, it's behind the times with the typical classic-era white man trying to pass himself off as a dark-skinned island native. Dorothy Lamour is likewise as "Marama," Terangi's wife.

The cinematography is very good and the direction excellent. Then again, one of the best directors of all time did this film: John Ford. It also has a nice cast. Look at the supporting actors: Mary Astor, Raymond Massey, C. Aubrey Smith, Thomas Mitchell and John Carradine!

A solid Golden Age adventure story and one of the best of the 1930s decade.

This silly but fun potboiler looks at life on a Polynesian island before a hurricane. The main attraction here is the climactic hurricane sequence, which is quite impressive for its time. What precedes it is rather melodramatic. Hall's many attempts to escape from prison are ridiculously implemented. As with other Ford films of the period, it's visually opulent but the acting is overdone. Massey and Mitchell seem to have a competition going to see who can be more hammy. At least they are actors who have shown themselves to be good performers in other films. The same can't be said of Hall. Like Johnny Weismuller, the hunky actor looks great but can't act his way out of a loincloth.

Just to respond to ccthemoviemans comment about Jon Hall being another Caucasian actor trying to pass himself off as a dark-skinned native. Although at a quick glance that may seem to be the case, in reality nothing could be further from the truth. My uncle worked with Mr. Hall back in the early 1950's. And having Jon Hall play this part was not really a backwards idea because although his features tended to favor his father, he was actually the son of a Tahitian mother. It's been said that he was descended from Tahitian royalty, as his mother was a Tahitian princess. In the islands he would be referred to as a "Hapa-Haole". A term describing someone who is half Caucasian and half Polynesian or Asian. Also worth noting, is that the movie "Hurricane" was adapted from a book written by Jon Halls uncle.

There is a great cast in this superb piece of Hollywood hokum. Jon Hall and Dorothy Lamour are in there physical prime, Raymond Massey brings dignity and his considerable acting skill to his role as the harsh Island governor, the wonderfully photogenic C. Aubrey Smith (was he ever young I wonder) is the priest and Thomas Mitchell plays his usual drunken Irishman (even though he's supposed to be French). The corn ball plot moves swiftly and is played sincerely and the climatic hurricane scenes are still awe inspiring

For sheer entertainment I give it 9 out of ten.

On a paradisaical South Seas island, bare-chested Jon Hall (as Terangi) marries bare-legged Dorothy Lamour (as Marama). They are a blissfully happy and fantastically attractive couple. But an ill wind begins to blow when Ms. Lamour has a bad dream. In Tahiti, hard-hitting Mr. Hall punches a white man and is thrown in jail. Hall repeatedly attempts to escape. Each time he is re-captured, Hall has two years added to his original six month sentence. He is also severely whipped. As the years are added, escape is the only reasonable option. Hall is incredibly athletic and resourceful. His adventures, directed by John Ford, are good. Even better is the ending hurricane staged by James Basevi.

******* The Hurricane (11/5/37) John Ford ~ Jon Hall, Dorothy Lamour, Thomas Mitchell, Raymond Massey

The Hurricane, John Ford's masterful film of 1937 is rightly remembered as one of the best disaster films of all time. It stands head above shoulders over should such miserable cinematic fare like CBS's ludicrous Category 7: Day of Destruction. For one thing, the hurricane in The Hurricane is not the focus of the story but its climax. Ford spends most of the movies developing the main characters of Terangi and Murama (played by Jon Hall and Dorothy Lamour respective) and their lives on the fictional South Pacific island of Manukura in French Polynesia. John Ford spends his time as any good story teller does in presenting sympathetic and unsympathetic characters (such as Raymond Massey's governor, Eugene De Laage and John Carradine's sadistic warden)and shows the obstacles that face these characters before leading up to the climatic hurricane of the movie title. Such patient work by Ford on his characters pays off in the climax of the movie when the hurricane hits. We, the viewers, care about the death of the people so affected. I found myself riveted by the climax, appalled at the death and destruction, as one should be by any disaster. Unlike Category 7, there is no temptation at all to laugh because Ford ultimately wasn't interested in special effects but in people and their effective characterization.

I guess the joke was on me for not realizing that John Hall's mother was Tahitian. Until I found that out, I thought it was utterly ridiculous that he was playing a Pacific Islander in this John Ford film. I didn't even know he was supposed to be Tahitian until he gets a line a few scenes into the movie where he tells Dorothy Lamour that he likes being at sea because everyone treats him like a white man. I was like, "huh? As opposed to what?" And then later, some dude in a cantina tells him he needs to give his seat up when a white man tells him to, and I was like, "Why is this white dude telling this other white dude to give up his seat?"

So if you're going to watch "The Hurricane," I've hopefully just saved you a half hour or so of being confused. Every single online review of this movie talks about the big storm scene at the end. Even TCM host Ben Mankiewicz couldn't think of anything else to say about this movie. That's because there isn't much of a movie before that. Oh, there's movie in the sense that there is literally 90 minutes of things happening on screen. But there's very little in the way of plot, and really only the two main characters are developed at all, so there's not a lot of suspense when the storm does hit because I didn't care that much about what happened to anyone. And even the two leads aren't developed exactly, beyond they just really love each other and want to be together.

Lamour looks very lovely, and John Hall is a bit of a hunkadoodle. Both of them spend almost the entire film wearing nothing much more than some fabric covering their naughty parts, so if you like a bit of skin in your movies, this one's for you.

"The Hurricane" is a bit of an oddity for a John Ford film, mostly because it's so lightweight in the plot and theme departments. There is some criticism of white colonialism, which seems right up Ford's alley, but it doesn't hit that theme too hard and instead stays mostly content to be a swoony romance.

Mary Astor is absolutely wasted in this film. Seriously, I'm not even sure why she was in it. Raymond Massey gets villain honors, and Thomas Mitchell received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for playing a drunk doctor. Did Mitchell every play anyone who wasn't at least a few sheets to the wind?

The film won the Oscar for Best Sound Recording. No award for special effects yet existed in 1937, and apparently this film was one of the reasons a special effects category would be created two years later. It also received a nomination for Alfred Newman's scoring.

Grade: B.

I remember seeing this movie decades ago as a child and being frightened by the hurricane scenes. I saw the movie again last night on AMC and it was even better than I remembered.

The special effects were far better than the computer generated ones of today. Sixty years before the real-life tsunami showed waves leaving villages and towns looking like Hiroshima, John Ford's movie dramatically showed similar results from a major hurricane. Utter devastation.

In addition, the story line was excellent. What should be noted is that the movie was based on a book, "The Hurricane", written by Nordhoff and Hall. If their names sound familiar, you may have read their most famous book, "Mutiny on the Bounty". Two authors who certainly knew of the oceans and the South Seas.

Wonderful.

Dorothy Lamour and John Hall provide the soap and the Hurricane provides the water for this lively adventure film about the South Seas. Lamour is appropriately exotic in her role, and Hall satisfies the macho fantasy of the man who has it all. Hall is wrongly imprisoned on some trumped up charge, and finally escapes. He moves from the frying pan into the fire, as he soon has to encounter a fierce hurricane that is far more formidable than a jail cell. A great fun film.

This was really not what I had expected. Pretty much anything written about this film puts the titular hurricane first and foremost, an exercise in special effects that is really quite impressive. However, it's really just the final twenty minutes or so of the hundred minute film, the rest being something quite different. Based on the novel of the same name by James Norman Hall (the movie's star's uncle), The Hurricane is more of an open conversation on the responsibilities of a colonial government and the people it governs for most of its runtime. I mean...that's much headier than I expected from what's primarily billed as a special effects extravaganza.

Manakoora is a remote South Pacific island on which lives Governor De Laage (Raymond Massey), a by the book French civil servant who will civilize the island. He never says explicitly that he will make it French, as French as Paris, but that does seem to be the implication. The island's doctor Kersaint (Thomas Mitchell) and priest Father Paul (C. Aubrey Smith) represent the other view of governance, one where the people are allowed freedom to live as they so wish, not bowing to the letter of the law with strict application.

Into this rides Terangi (Jon Hall), a native of the island returning as first mate on the ship bringing the governor's wife Germaine (Mary Astor) to live with her husband. Terangi is to wed his betrothed Marama (Dorothy Lamour) upon his arrival. He is quickly off again on another voyage to Tahiti, but she sneaks aboard because she has premonitions of bad things happening if he goes alone. The captain says she can stay but only if Terangi demotes himself to a seaman rather than first officer, so she jumps off and swims back. However, bad things quickly happen when Terangi slugs a white man trying to steal his table in a bar and insulting him. The man was a friend of some high up officials in France, and Terangi gets sent to prison in Tahiti for six months, the captain assuring him that his place is still open to him when he gets out and time will pass quickly.

Things do not pass quickly for Terangi, though. He's given open air work at the prison, and he quickly tries to escape, getting caught and having a year added to his sentence. He keeps attempting escape until his sentence is sixteen years. In the ensuing eight years of Terangi's imprisonment, Marama gives birth to their daughter and remains faithful to her husband, waiting for him to return. At the same time Laage continues a conversation with Kersaint and Father Paul about the justice of keeping a man in prison for beyond his original term especially when his original crime was as much a justifiable act as an unjust application of the law through influence. Laage will not budge, though, refusing to offer any kind of pardon for the young native because he must follow the law.

Terangi tries to escape one more time, successfully getting away and onto a small boat that he uses to travel the six hundred miles home at the same time that a hurricane is bearing down on the island. The ending is the intersection of everything up to that point with Terangi returning home, word reaching the island of his escape, Laage deciding that his top priority in the face of a huge storm is the capture of Terangi, especially since he killed a man escaping this time. The intersection of all the characters in the face of the hurricane is the movie at its height in no small part because of the actual hurricane itself.

Using a mixture of massive wind machines on a large outdoor set and miniatures, James Basevi, the special effects supervisor, created an incredibly believable flurry of nature. The miniature work is imperfect (I like to use the word adorable on miniature work that doesn't quite sell), but it's still incredibly detailed for what happens, matching rather perfectly with corresponding footage alongside it. The plights of the different characters in this cacophony of noise is clear despite the wind and the rain with each taking different tacts to try and survive the elemental onslaught. Some head to the church, hoping the stone walls will keep out the water, others go to the boats. Nature is an equal opportunity threat, though, and kills almost everyone, leaving some key players to ask the final questions on the importance of the law even in the face of such destruction.

It's a solid story, though I find the lack of characterization of both Terangi and Marama underwhelming, being portrayed as essentially mere innocents in the eyes of the larger powers, almost like nothing more than playthings to the elite. There's a point to that, but since the story really does revolve around them to a large degree, the thin characterization feels unfulfilling. And, debates (it almost feels like a running commentary on the film from within the film itself, reminding me of the ending of Ikiru) are not always the most interesting things to hear in film, so the conversations between Laage and Kersaint can delve too deep into the weeds of the idea instead of trusting the story to convey the ideas itself.

It's not perfect, but it's a solid entertainment with a surprising amount on its mind. Ford, as always, manages the production really well and the actors equally professionally. Hall is largely a non-entity, but that's mostly because of the underwritten nature of his character. It's Massey and Mitchell who carry the film, both very good character actors who can make almost any scene interesting by their mere presence.

When reviewing films made so long ago, such as John Ford's "The Hurricane" one MUST take into account the lack of computer graphics, etc., that so dominate today. This film of the late Thirties was an eye-opener in its day, and was rightly highly acclaimed for its power and effects. It even had a good story, and while there were some horrendous examples of overacting by today's standards (Aubrey Smith's final scene in the swamped Church is just one !) I felt overall it was an excellent movie. It set the seal for Dorothy Lamour to be an island maiden for many years to come, while it gave a great launchng pad for Jon Hall who unfortunately for him, never went on with it except mainly in T & A movies for Universal. The cast of Raymond Massey, Mary Astor and Thomas Mitchell (in a most familiar role for him!) all added to the quality of the film - full marks had to go to Ford for such an achievement.

Dr. Kersaint (Thomas Mitchell) recounts the story of a South Sea island left desolate. He was the drunken advisor to the newly appointed French Governor Eugene De Laage (Raymond Massey) who doesn't know the native language or the local customs. Sailor Terangi (Jon Hall) marries island princess Marama (Dorothy Lamour). He gets into a fight in Tahiti and gets thrown into hard labor prison. De Laage refuses to show leniency despite appeals from Father Paul (C. Aubrey Smith) or even his wife (Mary Astor).

The two young leads are photogenic although they are not Polynesians. That would be asking too much for this time in Hollywood. Dorothy Lamour was a legendary beauty from New Orleans. She would often portray exotic ladies. The two of them are doing mostly silent era acting. The first three quarters of the movie is a long melodramatic affair. The prison scenes look brutal. It all boils down to the epic hurricane. It is impressive special effects. They definitely did not spare the wind machines and the water tanks. The pure power of the effects is impressive.