Movie Review: Swamp Fire (1946)

Synopsis: After serving in the war, Johnny Duncan returns to the Louisiana delta and, despite suffering PTSD from his ship being sunk in battle, resumes his duties as Coast Guard bar pilot, guiding ships from the gulf to the Mississippi River and proposes to his girlfriend, Toni. However, a fatal accident on the eve of his wedding sends Johnny into a drunken spiral and the wealthy Janet Hilton, who has had her eyes on Johnny since the day she met him, uses it to attempt to steal him away from Toni and turn him against his friends.

Who's in it? The movie stars Johnny Weissmuller, Carol Thurston, Virginia Grey, Buster Crabbe and Edwin Maxwell.

Review: I had Swamp Fire in my library for some time and finally decided to watch it this morning. Since the description was a bit vague, I watched it with no expectations. Had I had expectations, I am confident the film would have failed to meet them.

Sometimes movies just try to do too much, and in the case of this film, it honestly just needed to pick a lane. The main story should have been Johnny's (Weissmuller) battle to regain his confidence behind the wheel of a boat with the support of his loving fiancée, Toni (Thurston). Instead, the movie tried to cram in two separate love triangles, Toni and Janet (Grey) fighting over Johnny while Johnny and Mike (Crabbe) fought over Toni and a non-boat angle involving Janet's family buying up the land and manipulating Johnny into helping enforce their no-hunting/fishing rules.

This might have all worked had it been a longer film but, at 69 minutes, there just wasn't enough time to build upon any of it. I'm still not even sure why Janet was so obsessed with Johnny considering their interactions were short, not at all romantic in nature and it was clear he was in love with Toni.

The lead actor also didn't help this film. Weissmuller just seemed to be phoning it in most of the time and lacked any sort of charisma (which in turn, made Janet's obsession even less likely), especially when compared to Crabbe and Thurston's performances. It honest felt as though he regretted accepting the movie role.

In fact, I found myself wondering if maybe they should have given Weissmuller less lines and just turned this into a Tarzan movie (Tarzan comes to America and joins the Coast Guard). I mean, Johnny did wrestle an alligator, so the movie was practically halfway there anyway.

Final Opinion: Had this movie focused more on Johnny's PTSD and less on a love triangle that just didn't make sense, it might have been a better film. However, based on Weissmuller's performance, I'm still not convinced it would have been a good one.

My Grade: D

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Here are some reviews of other movies with Virginia Grey:

Movie Review: Captain Scarface (1953)

Movie Review: No Name on the Bullet (1959)

Movie Review: Who Killed 'Doc' Robbin? (1948)

Movie Review: Whistling in the Dark (1941)