Irene, a woman living in China watches as her brother is shot down by an unknown airman. The brother survives but is too weak to continue with his mission which involves taking part of an amulet to San Fransisco to get money for the Chinese war effort against the Japanese. She is warned about the man who shot the brother, a Soviet military man who wants the money for his own. She is also told to look up a certain person in Shanghai if she gets into trouble. Once in Shanghai she runs a fowl of of the villain and escapes thanks to a wounded newspaper photographer, named McGinty, heading home to America. Linking up with her brothers friend the trio tries to get out of the city before the Japanese completely over run it and before the bad guys get them.
Considerably duller than the description makes out (I forgot the villains name and Ralph Morgans as well and I'm not impressed enough to look it up). This is a low budget film that takes into account the then current event of the Japanese Invasion of Shanghai. Despite the use of stock news footage this is a mostly stage bound espionage yarn that substitutes talk for action. Yes its well written, but it lacks any real action until the final reel or two to keep it interesting. The lack of action becomes numbing and I did have to fight to keep awake.
This isn't to say its a bad film, its not,its just a bit too talky for its own good. Lets face it you have to give the film points since the film kept me watching to the end because I had to see how it came out.
Would I recommend it? Well I wouldn't go out of my way to see it but if I found it on I would let it run out its running time. There are worse films and there are better, but in a pinch, on the Late Late Late Movie it would be fine.
