Adventure's End


Adventure's End is a 1937 American adventure film directed by Arthur Lubin and starring John Wayne and Diana Gibson. It was distributed by Universal Pictures.

Premise

Duke Slade, a Pacific islands pearl diver, signs up to sail on a whaling vessel. Before they sail, Captain Drew marries Slade to his daughter Janet, to protect him against his first mate, Rand Husk. When the crew mutinies at sea, Slade sides with the captain.

Cast

Adventure's End was the last of six films John Wayne made at Universal. Four of them were directed by Arthur Lubin who later recalled they usually "had six days to shoot. There was no time schedule, as there is today, where if you go late at night or start early in the morning, you have to pay more. In those days, you could shoot twenty-four hours a day.” Lubin says that Adventure's End was “very extravagant,” because “we were going to shoot in ten days,” and “it was going to be a big picture.” He says Wayne films were often inspired by “What sets are up these days that we can make pictures on, that won’t cost us much money”. Adventure’s End was made because “there was a boat on Universal lot, and they could use that.”
In November 1936 Trem Carr purchased Maid of Orleans, a 150 foot schooner, one of the last of the whaling ships on the west coast, in Vancouver. He purchased specifically for the film. Filming was postponed due to a shipping strike. By February the strike was over and the film was officially on Universal's production slate; Carr sent a crew to Vancouver to sail the boat to Los Angeles.
Filming started early July 1937.

Reception

The New York Times called the film a "pale reflection of several recent Hollywood sea epics."