AllMovie

This bizarre seafaring melodrama starred the ill-fated John Bowers (in 1936 he committed suicide by walking into the ocean, supposedly becoming the inspiration for A Star Is Born). Captain Martin Manning (Bowers) is told he must get his ship, the Sparrow, out of Mariner's harbor -- there is a dark superstition surrounding it. Manning goes to the Mariner's Home to tell the real story behind the ship. Years before, when he was a new mate, the ship's owner, David Rollins (Joseph J. Dowling), wanted to cure his son, Harry (Edward Burns), of a drug problem. The Sparrow's then-skipper, Thorne Wetherell (Spottiswood Aitken), agreed to take the young man on board. When Manning brought Harry to the ship, he discovered that the crew had mutinied and they were under the spell of voodoo practitioner Serpent Smith (Sheldon Lewis). Manning, Harry, and Wetherell's daughter, Marjorie (Marguerite de la Motte), worked together to overcome Smith and the crew. They succeeded and Manning won Marjorie.