Captain Lucky Ryland is about to retire. There is a flashback of several years to a voyage on a ship he was captaining from South America. He is forced to give a lift to a British governess, Ruth Elton, who is returning home. Both Ryland and his second mate, Vosper, fall for Ruth. Ryland proposes to Ruth and when she turns down his offer he tries to rape her in his cabin but she is rescued by Vosper. The ship, crew and Ruth survive a very severe storm in which Vosper saves Ruth's life outside on deck after which Ruth and Vosper first realize that they are in love with each other. After the voyage Ruth and Vosper are married and do not meet Ryland again until his Retirement Function. Ryland finally leaves his Retirement Function in a Taxi. The film ends with Ruth looking at Ryland in tears because she still has feelings for Ryland after all of the years and despite him once trying to rape her. There is a subplot about the dissatisfaction of the ship's crew with the supply of rotten potatoes which Ryland has bought cheaply simply to save money. The potatoes are dumped overboard and Ryland is determined to find out who is responsible by offering the crew £5 for any information as to who did it. It turns out this was done by Shorty but Ike the bosun, who later dies and is buried at sea, covers for him saying that he did it because although always pretending to be a very hard bosun he actually cares very much about his crew.
The film was based on a novel by Richard Armstrong that was published in 1953. It was Roy Ward Baker's first film after working several years in Hollywood. Baker's biographer would later write "although he was disappointed in the eventual result Passage Home was the quintessential 1940s and 1950s Baker film - classical in style and melodramatic/generic in its basic structure... it conveys a quiet, pervasive sense of despair in its storyline, involving melancholy and sexual repression." The script was by William Fairchild who had written Morning Departure, alo directed by Baker. The director called it "a bomb in the bomb locker story... all pretty formula stuff. It's not very good... The whole film should have been set in 1885 on a sailing ship. It was sort of a Victorian film. It just didn't work as a modern day film." Baker felt the "only interesting thing about" the movie was it used a new form of back projection. Diane Cilento's casting was announced in September 1954. She was cast after producer Julian Wintle had seen 60 people. Cilento had only recently appeared on stage in The Big Knife and signed a five year contract with Alex Korda. Her co star was Peter Finch, a fellow Australian. The film was shot at Pinewood Studios in November 1954. It was the first film Finch made under a new five year contract with the Rank Organisation.
