This movie is about the World War II US Merchant Marine. The film's director, Lloyd Bacon, was head of the US Navy's photo unit during World War I whilst the film's star, Humphrey Bogart, was a seaman during World War One and an avid recreational sailor.
This movie is considered a Second World War wartime propaganda film of the United States.
This movie is considered to have a pro-unionist and left-wing political stance written into its screenplay and dialogue.
This movie went into production a mere five short weeks after producer producer Jerry Wald was assigned the movie.
This movie's marketing connected the film with two of the studio's earlier pictures, Sergeant York and Air Force, by saying that the picture was "in the heroic tradition" of these two earlier movies.
This movie's opening prologue is a quote from Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It reads: "Today in the face of this newest and greatest challenge of them all, we of the United Nations have cleared our decks and taken our battle stations. It is the will of the people that America shall deliver the goods. It can never be doubted that the goods will be delivered by this nation, which believes in the tradition of 'DAMN THE TORPEDOES; FULL SPEED AHEAD'" 'Franklin D. Roosevelt'
This was producer Jerry Wald's final film before entering US military service.
Two of this movie's stars, Julie Bishop and Raymond Massey reprized their roles of Pearl O'Neill and Captain Steve Jarvis on radio in a Lux Radio Theatre show broadcast on 15 May 15 1944. The program also starred George Raft who in an early press release was originally announced as going to star in this movie.
Two replica ships were built on the Warner Brothers sound stages before John Howard Lawson's screenplay for this movie was even completed.
Uncredited writer on this picture Alvah Bessie once wrote, according to Bill Collins in his book 'Bill Collins presents the Golden Years of Hollywood', that this movie " . . . was one of very few movies made in America which not only showed there was a trade union movement, but also had scenes in the union hall, said a few basic things about unionism and showed what being a union member could mean for a man."
Very few early World War II films featured an American soldier who was an African-American. Humphrey Bogart, this movie's leading star, was once quoted in 'The Pittsburgh Courier' on 26 September 1942 as saying that he wanted to have a black Merchant Marine captain in this movie. He said: "In the world of the theatre or any other phase of American life, the color of a man's skin should have nothing to do with his rights in a land built upon the self-evident fact that all men are created equal."
When shooting the scene early in the movie, when their characters abandoned ship from their burning tanker, Humphrey Bogart and Raymond Massey got into a friendly argument over who had the better stunt double. In the end, the two stars decided to do away with their stunt doubles altogether and wound up doing the stunt themselves. Massey elaborates on this anecdote in detail in his autobiography, 'A Hundred Different Lives'.
Robert Mitchum:
Has one line of dialogue in the movie in a very early role.