The film tells a fictionalized version of the Pilgrims' voyage across the Atlantic Ocean to North America aboard the Mayflower. During the long sea voyage, Capt. Christopher Jonesfalls in love with Dorothy Bradford, the wife of William Bradford. The love triangle is resolved in a tragic way at the film's conclusion. Ship's carpenter John Alden —said to be the first person to set foot on Plymouth Rock in 1620—catches the eye of Priscilla Mullins, one of the young Pilgrims following William Bradford. Alden ultimately wins Priscilla in another, if subtler, triangle with Miles Standish. Lloyd Bridges provides comic relief as the first-mate Coppin, and child starTommy Ivo gives a touching performance as young William Button, the only passenger to die on the actual voyage across the storm-swept Atlantic, who, according to this film, wanted to be the first to sight land and to become a king in the New World. “I’m going to be the first to see land. Keep me eye peeled, I will. Then I’ll be the first. It’ll be like the Garden of Eden and I’m going to be the first to see it”.
Schary said at the time "I don't think that historical era has been done properly on screen before because the people were too soft. The pilgrims had to be tough and lusty to accomplish what they did. So that's the kind we cast in the film."
Reception
According to MGM records, the film earned $1,909,000 in the U.S. and Canada and $1,116,000 elsewhere; but, because of its high cost, ended up incurring a loss of $1,856,000. Paul Mavis, reviewing Warner Archive's release of Plymouth Adventure for Movies & Drinks, wrote, "Plymouth Adventure doesn’t provide much more than a Classics Illustrated view of the Pilgrims’ theology or psychology. However, the color-soaked, detail-rich production design, composer Miklos Rozsa’s beautiful, powerful score, and a few ripe turns from the familiar cast—along with that meticulous, action-filled voyage and sea storm middle section—all converge to give us first, a reasonably entertaining sea epic, and second, a tantalizing primer on a seminal story from our shared past"
Awards and honors
The picture won the Oscar for Best Effects. The actual model of the Mayflower ship from the movie is on display at the Original Benjamin's Calabash Seafood restaurant in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The model was purchased in an auction in the mid 1980s.
