Northwest Passage Springs to LIfe
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195cu.jpgStrawbery Banke Presents
HISTORIC PORTSMOUTH #195

The 1940 film "Northwest Passage" opens in a Hollywood stage copy of Portsmouth, NH. Actor Walter Brennan played the fictional town drunk Hunk Mariner. Robert Young played the imagined hero Langdon Towne. Both soon join "Indian fighter" Robert Rogers, played by Spencer Tracy. (See more below)

 

 

 

HISTORIC PHOTOS of the Greater Portsmouth Area appear here weekly

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Portsmouth, NH librarian Dorothy Vaughan assisted Kenneth Roberts in his research on the novel of the same name. The movie begins in Stoodley’s Tavern. Although the original tavern burned down, it was rebuilt in 1771 and that version was moved to Strawbery Banke in the 1960s at Vaughan’s request. (Columbia Pictures photo/ Robinson Collection)

MORE ON Major Robert Rogers
SEE ALSO Stoodley’s Tavern
SEE MORE Spencer Tracy 

Strawbery Banke

 This image from the book STRAWBERY BANKE:
A Seaport Museum 400 Years in the Making
by J. Dennis Robinson
(c) Strawbery Banke Museum Collection

 

Full Text of the Movie Advertisement (1940)

Springing to life
from the absorbing pages
of a great American novel!

A story that explores with action – yet reaches the inner heart
of every man and every woman who sees it … bringing the sting
of tears, the joy of love and laughter, the thrill of heroic
adventure that every American cherishes! Filmed in breathlessly
beautiful Technicolor … a drama of out savage frontier …
now brought to the heights of screen entertainment.

Metro- Goldwyn Mayer Presents
NORTHWEST PASSAGE
(Book 1 … Roger’s Rangers)
IN TECHNICOLOR Starring
SPENCER TRACY
with Robert Young
Water Brennan – Ruth Hussey
Nat Pendleton
Produced by Hunt Stromberg – Directed by King Vidor
Screen Play by Laurence Stallings and Talbot Jennings