Reap the Wild Wind was a serialized story written by
Thelma Strabel in 1940 for
The Saturday Evening Post, which was the basis for the
1942 film starring
Ray Milland,
John Wayne,
Paulette Goddard,
Robert Preston, and
Susan Hayward, and directed by
Cecil B. DeMille, his second
picture to be filmed in color. The movie, released shortly after the United States' entry into
World War II, was a swashbuckling adventure set in the 1840s along the
Florida coast, and was wildly successful.