China (1943)

China is a 1943 Paramount wartime adventure thriller.

David Llewellyn Jones (Alan Ladd) and Johnny Sparrow (William Bendix) are American businessmen and adventurers in China. This sounds like a setup for a fun movie but as we’ll see there’s not much fun to be had here.

It is 1941 and the Sino-Japanese War is raging. Jones and Johnny Sparrow trade with anyone, including the Japanese. Given that at this stage Japan and the United States are at peace there is of course absolutely no reason why they should not do so but we are constantly told how wicked Jones is to do this.

These two traders encounter Carolyn Grant (Loretta Young), a very moral American do-gooder. She wants them to use their truck to transport a dozen Chinese girls to Chungdu, well away from the advancing Japanese Army.

Jones sees no reason why he should do this. Eventually he changes his mind when he realises that the Japanese are wicked enemies.

Jones turns from a cynical hardbitten adventurer into an idealistic morally righteous crusader for freedom and democracy. We get some speeches to explain all this. Jones ends up deciding to take on an entire Japanese division with the aid of half a dozen Chinese guerrillas.

These girls are trainee schoolteachers who are going to build a new China and we get some speeches about that as well. We get quite a bit of speechifying.

Jones of course wants to find redemption, having previously devoted his life to wicked pursuits such as making a living and chasing girls. He must become a Hero.

This is a movie in which the leading man and leading lady have absolutely zero chemistry. It’s not as if they initially dislike each other. There’s just nothing. When, very late in the picture, we finally get a love scene between them it doesn’t ring true at all. And they still have zero chemistry.

Thee’s also a weird scene in which, totally out of left field, Johnny Sparrow declares his love for Miss Grant. He obviously doesn’t realise he’s the sidekick and the sidekick never gets the girl. Miss Grant however has pigeonholed him immediately as a sidekick and therefore unworthy of her love. And that scene is then quietly forgotten.

This is a very well-made movie. Australian director John Farrow had a great love for long takes and extended tracking shots and there are some fine examples of the latter in this film. Farrow had major faults as a director but he had his virtues as well and he was technically very accomplished. The action scenes are handled well, although they also have a real edge of nastiness. The audience is expected to take great glee in seeing Japanese soldiers mown down by machine guns. They are after all America’s enemies.

I have always disliked war movies and especially war movies made during wartime and this movie reminded me why. They are invariably propaganda and the propaganda in this movie is very crude indeed. The Japanese in this movie are fiendish cartoon villains. The Chinese are all brave and noble and honourable.

China also suffers from an excess of syrupy sentimentality.

Alan Ladd is one of my favourite actors but this is not one of his better performances. To be fair Frank Butler’s clumsy screenplay doesn’t give him much to work with. William Bendix is OK. Loretta Young is all self-satisfied moral righteousness. I love her early pre-code performances but here she’s rather dull and irritating.

China is pure propaganda from start to finish. The story and the characters don’t matter, what matters is bludgeoning the viewer with the message. I seriously advise you to avoid this movie.

Kino Lorber’s Blu-Ray release looks great.

Week-End Marriage (1932)

Week-End Marriage (also released as Working Wives) is a 1932 First National picture that combines comedy with romantic melodrama.

Ken (Norman Foster) and Lola (Loretta Young) are young and in love and they’d like to get married but Ken doesn’t earn much at his job, not enough to support a wife.

Now Ken has been offered a business opportunity but it would mean two years in South America. He tells Lola that he’ll work hard and make plenty of money so that when he returns they can marry. Lola is devastated. She doesn’t want to wait for two years.

Lola’s sister-in-law Agnes (Aline MacMahon) is convinced that Lola just hasn’t tried hard enough to persuade Ken to marry her. And that Lola hasn’t been clever enough. You don’t just wait for a man to propose. You make him propose, in such a way that he thinks it’s his idea.

This leads to a very funny scene in which Lola puts Agnes’s teachings into practice.

There’s also the question of whether Lola should give up her job. Ken wants her to. Lola doesn’t think they can survive on Ken’s salary, and eventually persuades him to let her keep her job.

Lola’s career prospers while Ken’s goes down the gurgler. Ken cannot cope with the idea of being supported by his wife. The marriage becomes rather rocky.

Lola is offered a great job in St Louis. She’d be a fool to turn it down and she takes it. Ken stays in New York and he’s well and truly on the downhill slide.

Lola meets Peter Acton (George Brent) in St Louis. Peter is charming and successful and he’s crazy about her. He is definitely interested in marrying her.

Peter is not a scoundrel. He’s a really nice guy. He couldn’t help falling in love with Lola but he doesn’t try to push her. He just hopes that eventually she’ll realise that Ken is a loser and divorce him and marry Peter.

Then something happens in New York which puts Lola in the position of having to choose between the two men.

Loretta Young looks gorgeous (and wears some stunning gowns) and she’s adorable and funny. She gave so many great performances in the pre-code era and she’s excellent here with her star quality very evident.

For some reason lot of people don’t seem to like George Brent. I have no idea why. Perhaps he didn’t have a huge acting range but in the right roles I’ve always thought he was fine, and he certainly had charisma and charm to burn.

Aline MacMahon goes close to stealing the picture. She’s very funny and it’s a nicely nuanced performance - Agnes is feisty and smart and worldly and knows how to get what she wants but her intentions are good and she’s actually a kind generous woman.

Norman Foster as Ken is the weak link but it’s only fair to say that it’s a very unrewarding part. Perhaps another actor could have given a livelier performance but Ken is supposed to be a very passive guy who just never learns to take charge of his life.

The only real sign that this is a pre-code movie is that while Lola is in St Louis Ken finds another woman and they are very obviously cohabiting, and no unfavourable judgments are made on this situation. There’s also a scene that suggests that Lola and Ken actually have a sexual relationship - once the Production Code came in in 1934 any hint that married couples have sex was forbidden.

If you have a look at some of the online reviews you’ll find that this is a movie that has many modern viewers foaming at the mouth with rage. It’s actually a movie that tries to deal seriously with an important issue - the difficulties a woman faces in trying to combine a successful career with a successful marriage. The fact that the movie doesn’t offer the ideologically correct 2020s answer to this question seems to outrage a lot of people. I find it amusing that people will actually get angry at a 90-year-old movie.

Week-End Marriage has some genuinely amusing moments and takes the problems faced by its characters quite seriously. Recommended.

The Right of Way (1931)

The Right of Way is a pre-code melodrama from First National Pictures. It was made in 1930 but not released until 1931.

The setting is Quebec. Charley Steele (Conrad Nagel) is a very successful trial lawyer. He’s very much a cynic. He has just won a case but he is convinced that the man he defended was in fact guilty of murder. This just adds to Charley’s self-loathing. He combines self-loathing with self-pity and he deals with both these afflictions by getting drunk as often as possible, and staying drunk.

He is trapped in a loveless marriage with Kathleen (Olive Tell) which doesn’t help.

Adding to his woes is Kathleen’s worthless kid brother Billy. Billy is a spectacularly unsuccessful gambler. He’s also a pathetic weasel and a coward. Charley and Kathleen have come to his rescue countless times but on this occasion Billy has helped himself to the contents of Charley’s safe. The money he stole doesn’t belong to Charley, it belongs to a trust fund administered by Charley so this is going to cause Charley considerable embarrassment.

Charley’s attempt to get the money back ends disastrously.

The movie then changes gears abruptly. The setting shifts to the Canadian wilderness. Charley no longer knows who he is. He has a new life, of sorts. And a sweetheart. Rosalie Evantural (Loretta Young) nursed Charley back to life and they have fallen madly in love.

There are of course some major obstacles to their love, about which they as yet know nothing.

This is pure melodrama and melodrama is not only an unfashionable genre but a much despised one. Even worse it’s a seriously misunderstood genre. It has its own conventions, like any other genre. The conventions of other genres are taken for granted while the conventions of melodrama are a stumbling block for many viewers.

It’s odd that melodrama is looked down upon on the grounds that it is unrealistic and non-naturalistic while these same qualities are happily accepted in genres such as horror, science fiction, westerns and romantic comedies.

The Right of Way certainly relies a good deal on coincidence but coincidence is one of the conventions of melodrama.

There’s also plenty of over-the-top emotionalism.

The acting here is very much in the melodrama style. I don’t mind that but it bothers a lot of people.

Olive Tell’s performance as Kathleen is certainly exaggerated. Conrad Nagel is outrageously hammy but he’s a great deal of fun.

The exception here is Loretta Young. Her performance is very naturalistic and very assured. She’s also charming and gorgeous.

Somehow, despite their different acting approaches, Nagel and Loretta Young manage to get some decent romantic chemistry going.

The problem with this movie is not the melodrama or the creakiness (and it does have some of the creakiness associated with the talkies of 1929 and 1930). The problem is the moralising.

We think of the pre-code era as a time when movies were raising questions about traditional morality. They were generally not seeking to overturn traditional morality, merely suggesting that perhaps it need not be applied rigidly and mercilessly. It need not be all about punishment. It’s worth bearing in mind that this did not apply to all movies made during this time. The Right of Way has no doubts about where it stands. There can be no flexibility, no mercy, no forgiveness.

The Right of Way is difficult to recommend. It’s not exactly enjoyable viewing. If you’re expecting pre-code verve, sparkle and cheekiness you won’t find any here.

This movie is paired with another First National pre-code offering, The Truth About Youth, on a single disc in the Warner Archive series. The Right of Way gets an acceptable transfer.