Alaska Seas

Featuring the only pet seal of the noir cycle, Jerry Hopper’s Alaska Seas is a nautical noir adventure story in an Alaskan Wild, Wild West and an extremely faithful remake of 1938’s Spawn of the North (including using the same upfront footage of northwest nature), which had starred George Raft and Henry Fonda but with a more lighthearted tone. Shot primarily in a gorgeous, icy, Paramount-produced set, the film depicts the growing tensions between two old friends, Matt Kelly (a buff Robert Ryan), a morally dubious and overambitious salmon fisherman recently released from an Alaskan prison, and Jim Kimmerly (an even buffer Brian Keith), a natural leader who runs a newly formed salmon cannery cooperative and, against his better judgment, invites Kelly to join his team, a favor Kelly repays by immediately sinking Kimmerly’s ship beneath icefall. Meanwhile, Verne Williams (Gene Barry) leads a band of salmon pirates on a boat named Who Cares who distract Kimmerly’s men by, for example, setting their cannery on fire while they raid the traps and steal their catch. As Kelly becomes alienated from Kimmerly’s team, he’s embraced by Williams, which will lead to no good, including a murder-suicide. Adding to the conflict is Nicky Jackson (Jan Sterling), the object of both men’s affections. Hopper stages plenty of action on the high seas, including violent gun battles, a harpoon attack, and not one but two boats ripped to pieces by a jittery glacier.