Reap the Wild Wind is a 1942 American adventure film produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Ray Milland, John Wayne, and Paulette Goddard, with a supporting cast featuring Raymond Massey, Robert Preston, Lynne Overman, Susan Hayward and Charles Bickford. DeMille's second Technicolor production, the film is based on a serialized story written by Thelma Strabel in 1940 for The Saturday Evening Post. The screenplay was written by Alan Le May (author of the novel The Searchers), Charles Bennett, Jesse Lasky, Jr. and Jeanie MacPherson. While he based his film on Strabel's story, set in the 1840s along the Florida coast, DeMille took liberties with details such as sibling relationships and subplots, while staying true to the spirit of the story, which centers on the headstrong, independent woman portrayed by Goddard. Released shortly after the United States' entry into World War II, Reap the Wild Wind was wildly successful at the box office and earned three Academy Award nominations, winning for Best Special Effects. Plot In 1840, Loxi Claiborne is running a marine salvage business started by her deceased father. A hurricane is passing through the Key West area, leaving behind at least one wreck on the nearby shoals. The Jubilee founders, and Loxi and other salvagers race to claim the cargo. Not arriving first, Loxi and her crew rescue the captain, Jack Stuart, but do not share in the salvage rights. Apparently, the first salvager on the scene, King Cutler, may have actually planned the wreck. Nursing Jack back to health, Loxi falls in love with him. When she visits Charleston with her cousin Drusilla, Loxi schemes to win a plum captain's position for Jack by seducing Steve Tolliver, who is running the sailing ship line for which Jack works. Steve falls for Loxi and returns with her to Key West to investigate the truth about Jack's shipwreck. Drusilla goes home to Havana when Loxi and Steve return to Key West. Steve has come to rid the Keys of pirates like Cutler (and to be near Loxi). Cutler, in turn, arranges to have Steve shanghaied by the crew of a whaler. Loxi hears of the plot and gets Jack to help her save Steve. Later, they discover that Steve has concealed Jack's appointment to the steamship Southern Cross on orders from his superior. Angry over a seemingly underhanded act, Jack meets with Cutler. He learns that Steve's