It's early 1942. Jimmy Stewart is a reporter recently returned from Southeast Asia, soured because his brother was killed on Wake Island. He's enlisted by the feds to smuggle three hidden hordes of rubber out of Malaya, but he needs the help of a former companion, Spencer Tracey, whom he sent up the river by selling a scandalous newspaper story. The fed arrange for Tracey's release.
Tracey is ensconced in Alcatraz. He's brought to the warden's office and meets Stewart for the first time since his betrayal. "Well, well, well!", says Tracey, all smiles, as he walks up to Stewart and punches him on the jaw. Still smiling, Tracey cradles Stewart's face lovingly in his hands and says, "I didn't really let that one go, you know," and then pinches his cheek like a baby.
That pretty much sets the tone of the rest of the picture. Fifteen minutes with the embittered and determined Stewart and the rest of the film belongs to Tracey. It isn't that Stewart's performance is in any way inadequate. But his role has little in the way of dimension. He's played cynical and unpleasant types before, up to and including "Rear Window." This is an extension of the same character.
Tracey is marvelous. Here, he's a man of impulsive action and pragmatism, selfish. And he was only one year away from playing the sentimental role of the "foxy grandpa" in "Father of the Bride." If this had been made in 1942 instead of 1949, it could easy have been a cheap flag-waver. The Japanese -- Richard Loo, a Hawaiian-born Chinese -- are still treacherous and a little fanatic. The plot is a thing of shreds and patches. Stewart and Tracey are going to save the US rubber industry by smuggling out a couple of boat loads of rubber -- one hundred and fifty thousand tons carted along a small river in small boats, without the Japanese army of occupation noticing the strange activity.
But it's not nearly as bad as it might sound. The direction is efficient, the performances alone would save the film if nothing else did, and the dialog has some keen edges to it, even during dull scenes of Tracey and Valentina Cortese murmuring to each other about their mutual love. Sidney Greenstreet adds a flaccid stability. And Richard Loo is hilarious as Colonel Tomura.
A few feet of location footage aside, as well as some shots of PT boats I swear was lifted from "They Were Expendable," it was all shot on the MGM lot. All the white men wear white suits. (No pith helmets, and I wept at their absence.) Tracey and Stewart hire the usual movie-style riff raff in colorful and raggedy outfits to man the boats that will carry the smuggled rubber.
Enjoyable. Not the stupid plot but its execution.
Tracey is ensconced in Alcatraz. He's brought to the warden's office and meets Stewart for the first time since his betrayal. "Well, well, well!", says Tracey, all smiles, as he walks up to Stewart and punches him on the jaw. Still smiling, Tracey cradles Stewart's face lovingly in his hands and says, "I didn't really let that one go, you know," and then pinches his cheek like a baby.
That pretty much sets the tone of the rest of the picture. Fifteen minutes with the embittered and determined Stewart and the rest of the film belongs to Tracey. It isn't that Stewart's performance is in any way inadequate. But his role has little in the way of dimension. He's played cynical and unpleasant types before, up to and including "Rear Window." This is an extension of the same character.
Tracey is marvelous. Here, he's a man of impulsive action and pragmatism, selfish. And he was only one year away from playing the sentimental role of the "foxy grandpa" in "Father of the Bride." If this had been made in 1942 instead of 1949, it could easy have been a cheap flag-waver. The Japanese -- Richard Loo, a Hawaiian-born Chinese -- are still treacherous and a little fanatic. The plot is a thing of shreds and patches. Stewart and Tracey are going to save the US rubber industry by smuggling out a couple of boat loads of rubber -- one hundred and fifty thousand tons carted along a small river in small boats, without the Japanese army of occupation noticing the strange activity.
But it's not nearly as bad as it might sound. The direction is efficient, the performances alone would save the film if nothing else did, and the dialog has some keen edges to it, even during dull scenes of Tracey and Valentina Cortese murmuring to each other about their mutual love. Sidney Greenstreet adds a flaccid stability. And Richard Loo is hilarious as Colonel Tomura.
A few feet of location footage aside, as well as some shots of PT boats I swear was lifted from "They Were Expendable," it was all shot on the MGM lot. All the white men wear white suits. (No pith helmets, and I wept at their absence.) Tracey and Stewart hire the usual movie-style riff raff in colorful and raggedy outfits to man the boats that will carry the smuggled rubber.
Enjoyable. Not the stupid plot but its execution.