Northwest Passage (1940)

[last lines]
Elizabeth Browne: [standing alongside Langdon Towne as Major Robert Rogers and his rangers march into the distance] Is there, Langdon? Is there a Northwest Passage?
Langdon Towne: Who knows.
[pause]
Langdon Towne: It's every man's dream to find a short route to his heart's desire. If the major dreams long enough, he'll find it.
Elizabeth Browne: Will we hear from him?
Langdon Towne: Hear from him?
[pause]
Langdon Towne: Every time we look across the river we'll hear his voice calling us through the wind. He'll be within us, Elizabeth - wherever we are or he may be - for that man will never die.

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Langdon Towne: [Slapping at mosquitoes as they walk through wetlands] Mosquitoes don't bite you, do they?
Hunk Marriner: Nope.
Langdon Towne: You put something on that keeps them off?
Hunk Marriner: Rancid bear grease. They hate the stink worse than I do.
Langdon Towne: [Smelling some of the bear grease that Hunk offers him] thanks. I'll take the mosquitoes.

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Maj. Robert Rogers: [referring to Langdon's abdominal wound] Are ypu hurt bad?
Langdon Towne: First thing I've had in my stomach in days.

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The most demanding scene for the actors involved the filming of the "human chain" employed by the Rangers to cross a treacherous river. The actors themselves had to do the shots without the benefit of stunt doubles. The sequence was begun at Payette Lake in Idaho but had to be completed in the studio tank because the lake was far too dangerous. For Spencer Tracy, who once complained that the physical labors required of actors "wouldn't tax an embryo," it was his most difficult shoot to that point, surpassing even the taxing ocean scenes of his Oscar-winning Captains Courageous.
Members of Roger's Rangers fought on the American side in the initial battles of the Revolutionary War, Lexington and Concord, in 1775.
The Bible passage that Rogers quotes "The voice of him who crieth in the wilderness... " is from Isaiah 40:3.
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