User Reviews

Spencer Tracy plays a smuggler who is released from prison to help Jimmy Stewart sneak a huge rubber crop out of Japanese-held Malaya during WW II. They sneak into the country and meet up with Sydney Greenstreet (in his last film), who helps them recruit a group of men to assist, including Gilbert Roland. They use money and force to purchase all the available rubber, but the Japanese find out and ambush the last shipment. Who will live to complete the mission? I don't like the first 18 minutes of this film because I don't care much (at least usually) for film noir...and although this is not a gangster flick, the beginning is definitely noir. It is nice, within that portion of the film to see Lionel Barrymore, and nice also to see John Hodiak, both of whom do what they need to do to advance the plot.

Some people don't like the Jimmy Stewart character we meet here, because it's not the nice Jimmy Stewart we all came to like. Here's he's a rather cynical newspaper reporter, and he does fine in the part.

About 20 minutes into the film he teams up with Tracy, fresh out of Alcatraz for the heist of the rubber from Malaysia. If you are a fan of Tracy, and have seen his pics from 1945 to 1948, you know he was aging fast, and here, in 1949, he is surprisingly older...and it's not makeup.

The Old Dutchman is played by Sydney Greenstreet, who was suffering from diabetes and a form of kidney disease at the time. This was his last film before he retired; he died a little over 4 years later. Here he plays the owner of a café of sorts, in a role not dissimilar to the one he played in "Casablanca", although here he is sweatier and dirtier.

Richard Loo plays Japanese Colonel Tomura. Gilbert Roland is one of the men who helps Tracy and Stewart. John Hodiak is an FBI agent. Valentina Cortese is good as Luana, Tracy's girlfriend.

This is not a great film like "Casabalnca", and it was clearly not a film into which MGM invested great sums of money. But, it's a different kind of WWII film, and as such, a welcome change. The action is pretty decent, and it does make some sense. Tracy is very good here, Stewart is reasonably good, and there's a degree of suspense since you have a pretty good idea that one of the good guys is going to die before the end of the picture. But, which one? Tracy and Steward fans will want this on their DVD shelf. It's on mine.

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.

After watching this because of the stars in the cast I thought it strange that it contains film noir elements in an early 1940s WWll propaganda movie. Then I see that it was made in 1949? So it's a B action studio film stocked with numerous stars? Maybe? I don't know.

Lot's of heroes and stereotype villains. Fist fights a plenty. Silly plot twists. Man the Japanese soldiers are stupid.

James Stewart seems miscast but I loved his scenes with John Hodiak. JS spends the whole movie bumming and lighting cigarettes that he doesn't smoke? At times he lights them and then puts them out? Constant making and pouring of coffee that isn't drank? The rest of the film he plays the abused actor victim of Spencer Tracy who does incredible tricks to steal every scene. During one JS monologue Tracy removes his neck tie with great difficulty! In another he belches! Tracy walks around while looking at the floor playing with things in his hands or scratching his face and ears. Very distracting. Hard for me to watch most Spencer Tracy films.

The large cast of misfits clown for the camera in typical 1940s fashion. Not quite a Bowery Boys movie but silly to watch. Unattractive bad girl plays prostitute with a heart. Why not have a pretty girl in this role?

In closing a good watch for a fan of Hollywood studio 1940s films but except for the big stars a waste of time.

This movie is about how close the U.S. war effort (and it's "arsenal of Democracy" image) came to faltering in 1942. The U.S. has been blessed with many natural resources that other country's don't have. Oil for example, or iron ore and steel. Or even huge forests of trees. But we are not a nation with huge stores of rubber. We are dependent on rubber supplies from abroad.

Oddly enough one man had tried to counter this. In the teens of the 20th Century, Thomas Edison had become a close friend to Harvey Firestone, the tire king. Firestone had huge rubber plantations in Liberia, but was aware of the dangers to his shipping of rubber in World War I. He discussed the possibility of an alternative to rubber in the U.S. with Edison. It was the Wizard of Menlo Park's last big project, occupying his life until 1931 when he died. He found that golden rod came closest to being a viable substitute. But little was done with this discovery.

In 1942 our rubber was coming from three areas of the globe, and none were next door to us. They were in Liberia and Brazil, both of which were across the Atlantic Ocean to the east or to the south. Nazi u-boats were making shipments from these areas difficult. The third was from southeast Asia, principally from French Indo - China or from Malaya and Indonesia. The movie RED DUST dealt with the rubber plantations in French Indo - China in the 1930s. The Japanese had these plantations and the ones in Malaya and Indonesia in their control from December 1941 onward.

To counter the emergency, a rubber-collecting drive occurred across the country (similar to tin and metal drives that children got involved in). But the U.S. government was quick to organize any method to get the rubber that was in Japanese hands. This movie dealt with the scheme that was planned that involved smuggling Rubber out of Malaya.

Lionel Barrymore is John Manchester, the editor of the LOS ANGELES RECORD (based on Manchester Boddy). He has gotten Jimmy Stewart, a reporter with a mixed record, to the U.S. Stewart knows about a way to get huge supplies of rubber to the U.S. under the nose (theoretically) of the Japanese. The plan requires the government springing his former friend Spencer Tracy, a big time smuggler, out of Alcatraz. With Tracy Stewart would go to Malaya (with papers showing they are sailors from the neutral Eire - Irish Free State - of Eamon DeValera). They would hook up with Tracy's old friend "the Dutchman" (Sidney Greenstreet) and he would help find the local wharf rats (including Gilbert Roland) to assist the matter. They would have unlimited American gold to get the men they need, and to bribe the three largest plantation owners in the area (Tom Helmore, Ian MacDonald, and Roland Winters). To sweeten the operation for Tracy, who will get a free pardon for his help, he is reunited with Valentina Cortesa - his girlfriend who works in Greenstreet's saloon.

The film follows the whole operation, which (on the whole) is working well enough - but has it's dangers. The local Japanese Colonel is Richard Loo, who is suspicious (if dismissive) of westerners, and he soon zeros in on Tracy and Stewart as distinctly odd figures. And one of the three plantation owners, Winters, is a German. He is a greedy man, but he may be closer to the Japanese than the allies.

The film works pretty well. My only complaint is the seeming waste of John Hodiak, who is a Federal agent and is seen for twenty minutes at the start of the film, but only turns up at the tail end of it to deliver a medal (I won't say to whom). This was Sidney Greenstreet's last movie, and he does look a trifle ill, but he certainly maintains his best standards - as a philosophical gent who knows how to safely balance his friendship with Tracy and his "necessary" friendship with Loo (his relationship with Loo, regarding gambling in his saloon, is similar to that of Rick Blaine with Captain Louis Renault in CASABLANCA). Winters plays his few scenes as an untrustworthy type well. Cortesa has a few good scenes with Tracy, including one where he has to forcibly cause her to leave him when she does not want him. Stewart's character believes in maintaining his own counsel. At the beginning he seems a hard bitten reporter who has seen the world and skirted the edge of the law a bit. He is cynical. Only later do we realize that a family tragedy has made him less cynical and more patriotic than we realized.

I am so surprised that this movie was made in 1949. It plays much like war propaganda films made during the war. The story of the rubber shortage during the beginning of the war and some Americans and others getting involved to steal rubber in Malaysia.

Spencer Tracy does some fine acting here. He also punches out several people and somehow it seems like he actually does. Valentina Cortese is the leading woman, she is even shorter than Tracy. James Stewart has a different type of role here as a brother trying to get revenge with the Japanese after his brother is killed in the war. Sydney Greenstreet is a bad guy whose playing both sides. Lionel Barrymore has a brief role early in the film. John Hodiak is featured as Kellar.

For some reason, when the film ends, it has the feel of what might have been a war propaganda film. This might be because the story was written by Manchester Boddy who wrote a film called "Mr. Blabbermouth" which was one of those films. Frank Fenton converted it for the screen as he did other films often in the 1950's.

Producer: Edwin H. Knopf. Copyright 25 November 1949 by Loew's Inc. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture. New York opening at the Capitol: 22 February 1950. U.S. release: 6 January 1950. U.K. release: 16 January 1950. Australian release: 1 June 1950. 8,557 feet. 95 minutes. Alternate U.S. title: Alien Orders. U.K. release title: EAST OF THE RISING SUN.

COMMENT: Disappointingly little action can be glimpsed in this over-talkative account of rubber smuggling in war-time Malaya. Not only is the screenplay irritatingly slow in getting under way, but Richard Thorpe's stolidly unimaginative, heavy-handed direction kills whatever promise the original yarn might have possessed. At times, would you believe, the script presents feeble echoes of Cacablanca, - for example in the sequence where George Folsey's camera caresses Cortesa singing "Those Little Things".

The marquee interest stimulated by the teaming of Tracy and Stewart also proves a fizzer. Indeed, all the acting rates as disappointingly routine. Richard Loo's charming manners come across as no substitute for Casablanca's Claude Rains ("I'm just a corrupt public official"), while Sydney Greenstreet renders his customary characterisation with a glumly dispirited air that effectively conveys his total dissatisfaction with the movie in general and Thorpe's impersonal handling in particular. Keen-eyed fans will have to stay wide awake to catch sight of Gilbert Roland who has one of the smallest and least consequential roles of his career. Likewise Lionel Barrymore, whose two scenes do him little credit.

To sum up, the picture falls resoundingly flat. Despite a tolerably large budget and a fair dollop of surface gloss, Malaya proves once again that even the strongest cast cannot survive a tepid script and dull direction.

This movie is never good. It just keeps going from bad to worse. And just when you think it can't get any worse, it surprises you and does.

Very little of it is believable. How could Stewart and Tracy smuggle all that rubber, in large boats, down the river without the Japanese seeing them????

Once Stewart is killed in the attempt, the picture only gets worse. We have no idea why Tracy at one point pushes the woman he has been involved with overboard. And then, where did those two PT boats come from, and how did they manage to sink the Japanese destroyer?

It just doesn't make sense. And it's not a good movie.