From Cecil B. DeMille, the legendary director of The Sign of the Cross, Cleopatra, Samson and Delilah and The Ten Commandments comes this turbulent, swashbuckling tale with an all-star cast, set in 1840s Key West. Reap the Wild Wind stars Ray Millan (The Lost Weekend), John Wayne (Rio Bravo), Paulette Goddard (Diary of a Chambermaid), Robert Preston (Junior Bonner), Susan Hayward (Rawhide), Raymond Massey (Abe Lincoln in Illinois) and Charles Bickford (The Big Country). A potent combination of romance and adventure, the film centers on a headstrong independent woman played by Goddard. Along the seaboard of the American South, cut-throat salvagers who profit from the wrecks of transatlantic cargo ships move from exploiting shipwrecks to causing them. As the most dangerous of the salvagers, King Cutler (Massey), takes aim at the ships of the wealthy Devereaux Company, ambitious ship captain Jack Stuart (Wayne) and company lawyer Stephen Tolliver (Millan) vie for the hand of feisty Lexi Claiborne (Goddard). Winner of the Academy Award for Best Effects, Special Effects and nominated for two other Oscars, Best Cinematography (Color) and Best Art Direction - Interior Decoration (Color).

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Cecil B. DeMille's Technicolor historical spectacle Reap the Wild Wind was to have starred Gary Cooper, but Cooper's prior commitment to Goldwyn's Pride of the Yankees compelled DeMille to recast the leading role with John Wayne. The film, set in the mid-19th century, centers around Key West, Florida, where piracy reigns unchecked and steam engines are beginning to replace tall ships. Jack Stuart (Wayne) is a sea captain who crashes his vessel on the shoals of Key West. Loxi Claiborne (Paulette Goddard), the hoydenish manager of a salvage firm, arrives on the scene, but discovers that her rival in the salvage business, King Cutler (Raymond Massey) has reached Wayne first and lashed him to the mast, and is proceeding to ransack the ship with the aid of his partner-in-crime, younger brother Dan Cutler (Robert Preston). The Cutlers have built up quite a reputation for reaching wrecks ahead of competitors - to such a degree that some suspect them of making under-the-table deals with dishonest captains. While the men continue to ransack the ship, Loxi nurses Jack back to health, and the two fall in love; meanwhile, Jack worries openly that he'll lose the privilege of piloting his company's newest steamship. To ensure that this doesn't happen, Loxi offers to travel to Charleston, South Carolina and convince investigators that pirates were responsible for what happened to Jack. Subsequently, the company attorney, Stephen Tolliver (Ray Milland) must go to Florida with Jack's commission papers, and investigate the circumstances of the incident prior to givng the papers to the captain. In the process, Jack and Stephen become intense rivals for Loxi's affections.