International Settlement

This obscure 1938 film starring George Sanders and Delores Del Rio seems somewhat like Gilda, and just as good. He arrives in Shanghai in 1937 just as the Japanese forces are beginning to threaten the city. Delores Del Rio is a nightclub singer who has some dangerous associates.

This film has a good premise which loses tempo as the story unfolds. It begins with a woman singing on board a ship, and then we dolly in to another woman who is enchanted by what she sees. The woman herself is not that significant, the production value in this scene is quite good. This is the scene that George Sanders is introduced and so our story begins. He is summoned to the room of a man named Labello who knows he only has $50 in his pocket and is susceptible to bribes. Labello offers him $200,000 to impersonate him in a munitions deal which Sanders accepts.

The scene between Sanders and John Carradine is quite strong. It has echoes of 'Manhunt' where Carradine also plays a strong character, but doesn't meet Sanders. It would have been good if Sanders and Carradine had a fight scene.

George Sanders is a soldier of fortune heading to Peiping to see what he can make out of the Sino-Japanese war. When the ship is about to dock, he's almost shot by Dolores Del Rio, makes a date with her, and is asked to see gun-runner Pedro de Cordoba, who offers him a deal: go meet some buyers for his wares, collect a million dollars, and bring it back to de Cordoba, who will pay him $10,000 and release the weapons. Sanders agrees, gets taken to a location outside the European zone, gets the money from John Carradine and Harold Huber. He starts on his way back, but gets lost. When he returns to the International Settlement, he finds de Cordoba dead.

That's when the story gets complicated.

It's a glossy Twentieth Century-Fox B movie with a busy script, a couple of subplots, Keye Luke as a doctor, Leon Ames as a bad guy, and glossy cinematography by Lucien Andriot. Director Eugene Forde foes his usual competent job of direction on the B lot, and the twists keep coming through the last minute. It's a very good example of why Sol Wurzel's unit was the best B studio in this period.

1938's "International Settlement" refers to the heart of Shanghai China (the shooting title was "Shanghai Deadline"), during the time when Japanese air raids bombed the city. George Sanders stars as Del Forbes, a soldier of fortune who agrees to impersonate a munitions dealer (Pedro de Cordoba) set to collect 200,000 English pounds for a little dishonest wheeling and dealing. Joseph Lang (Harold Huber) and his partner Murdock (John Carradine) complete the transaction by turning the money over to Forbes in a handy money belt; unfortunately, Monte Silver (Leon Ames) also covets the fortune, and sends his chanteuse wife Lenore (Dolores Del Rio) over to kill Forbes before the money changes hands. Lenore winds up falling for Forbes instead, and after some minor intrigues dragged out for 80 minutes, the survivors are all gathered together on a boat bound for the US, where the villains get their just desserts. Sanders proves why he would make a good Simon Templar, alias The Saint, the following year, and Dolores Del Rio, truly one of Hollywood's most beautiful stars, manages to overcome a somewhat clichéd part (and receives top billing). Among the numerous Asian actors in attendance are Keye Luke, playing a sympathetic doctor, Victor Wong (blink and you'll miss him) as a rickshaw driver, and Victor Sen Yung, still a year away from his debut as Jimmy Chan, playing dual non-speaking roles as a bellboy, and later an onlooker in the street. John Carradine has another disappointingly small part (typical of his Fox roles, just four scenes), but he does very well indeed; dressed in an immaculate white suit, complete with pipe and Scottish accent, the bearded actor warily eyes Forbes during the money trade off, then winds up getting shot with his partner later on, but that's not the last we see of him. He looks very much like his President Lincoln in "Of Human Hearts," shot and released at the same time, only without the elaborate makeup. Carradine would go on to make quite a few features with George Sanders: "Four Men and a Prayer," "Mr. Moto's Last Warning," "Man Hunt," "Son of Fury," and "The Private Affairs of Bel Ami."

Del Rio was such an exotic and classically elegant actress that it's a pity when she gets stuck donating blood to a man who just tried to strangle her, stuck with a entire stock of absurd situations with bombs bursting in air during the Sino-Japanese war. It is unsettling to see the actual bombing and destruction of a major city used as a backdrop for "B" movie melodrama, even if George Sanders does get to wear a mustache and affect something other than world-weary attitude; the "B" film had great possibilities, but too much footage is given over to a pair of silly romantic magpies, one a Sacramento reporter trying to snag an important story but getting hung up on a budding romance. There are plenty of incidental pleasures, of course: the appearance of John Carradine doing his Irish best, Harold Huber and Leon Ames as greedy baddies, and a short running time. But I'd rather see Del Rio as Madame Dubarry any day!