Tuesday, July 16, 2019

China Seas 1935


     Alan Gaskell is the Captain of a ship bound from Hong Kong to Singapore.  Alan wants to turn over a new leaf and leave behind his hard-drinking lifestyle.  He had been seeing Dolly and she likes this life-style?  He has reunited with Sybil Barclay on the ship, she’s from England and her husband passed away.  She has been traveling to ease her pain and she is Alan's friend.  She is a refined lady and Dolly is just the opposite but extremely beautiful.  Dolly leaves Alan behind and she starts drinking with fellow passenger Jamesey MacArdle.  Dolly learns some information about Jamesey but she must keep it to herself!! 
     There is gold aboard the ship and the ship is temporarily taken over by Asian pirates.  They maim the legs of Dawson and they put Alan’s ankle in a Maylay boot.  They want information from Alan!!  This boot has been widely used in the Middle Ages and it has a screw press that is slowly tightened.  It can crush the bones and the ankle will be unusable.  I thought this film was good!!  I knew that certain scenes were fudged and not real-time action.  4* (I really liked this movie)   
    
97 min, Action directed by Tay Garnett with Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone, Rosalind Russell, Dudley Digges, C. Aubrey Smith, Robert Benchley, William Henry, Live De Maigret, Lilian Bond, Edward Brophy, Soo Young, Carole Ann Beery, Akim Tamiroff. 

Note:  Imdb 7 out of 10, Rotten Tomatoes 72% audience, Three Movie Buffs average 3 ½* out of 4*, Letterboxd 3.2* out of 5*, The Motion Pictures 3.5* out of 5* Lindsey, Amazon 4.5* out of 5* with 43 reviews.

Special Note:  Filmed in MGM Studios, Culver City, California.  Harlow wears a wig for this film because she had cut her hair shorter and was letting her natural color grow in.  When she becomes soaked by the storm, she isn’t wearing the wig and you can see for a few seconds that her hair is shorter and a different color.  Two stuntmen were nearly killed as they were washed away by 50 tons of water!!  This film was a great success for MGM and earned a profit of $653,000 ($11.5M in 2016 dollars).  The shipment of gold was 34,488.95 ounces and would be worth almost $46.9M in 2016.  This film was banned in Malaya and Singapore.

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