Spawn of the North

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Spawn of the North ★★ ½ 1938

Alaska's the final frontier in the early 1900s as fisherman Jim Kimmerlee (Fonda) tries to earn an honest buck. But former friend Tyler Dawson (Raft) has joined a group of Russian pirates who plunder the nets of others and the two men are forced into a deadly confrontation. Solid cast, weak script, and a special Oscar for photographic and sound effects (a glacier's involved). Based on the novel by Barrett Willoughby; remade in 1954 as “Alaska Seas.” 110m/B VHS . Henry Fonda, George Raft, Dorothy Lamour, John Barrymore, Akim Tamiroff, Louise Platt, Fuzzy Knight, Duncan Renaldo; D: Henry Hathaway; W: Jules Furthman, Talbot Jennings; C: Charles B(ryant) Lang Jr.; M: Dimitri Tiomkin.