Northwest Passage (movie)

Northwest Passage is a 1940 movie, starring Spencer Tracy, Robert Young, Walter Brennan, Ruth Hussey, and others.

It is set during the French and Indian War (as the Seven Years' War in North America is usually known in the US). It gives an account of an attack by Roger's Rangers on St Francis, a settlement of the Abenakis, an American Indian tribe. The purpose of the raid is to revenge the many attacks on British settlers and reduce the capability of the warriors of the village from carrying out future attacks.

The title is something of a misnomer, since this film is a truncated version of the original story, and only at the end do we find that Rogers and his men are about to go on a search for the Northwest Passage.

The main problem with the film is its racist treatment of the American Indians, rather extreme even by the standards of Hollywood at the time.

The film is based on a novel by Kenneth Roberts, also called "Northwest Passage."