This Woman Is Mine (1941)

One would never know it from the title, but This Woman is Mine is a virile seafaring yarn dealing with the northern fur trade. Based on a sprawling novel by Gilbert W. Gabriel, the film takes place during a trading expedition from New York to Oregon, bankrolled by John Jacob Astor (played by Sig Ruman!) Ship's captain Jonathan Thorn (Walter Brennan) is a stern taskmaster in the Captain Bligh tradition, who demands 110 percent from his passengers and crew members, among them bookkeper Robert Stevens (Franchot Tone), French-Canadian adventurer Ovide de Montigny (John Carroll) and pretty stowaway Julie Morgan (Carol Bruce). The anticipated romantic triangle develops, but this is forgotten when Thorn's vessel is besiged by hostile Indians on the banks of the Columbia River. A literally explosive conclusion more than compensates for the narrative silliness that precedes it.