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Malaya

  • 1949
  • Approved
  • 1h 38m
IMDb RATING
6.5/10
1.6K
YOUR RATING
James Stewart, Spencer Tracy, Sydney Greenstreet, Valentina Cortese, and John Hodiak in Malaya (1949)
AdventureDramaWar

Newspaperman Royer convinces government officials of a plan to obtain rubber by smuggling it out from under the Japanese. Carnahan is let out of prison to help.Newspaperman Royer convinces government officials of a plan to obtain rubber by smuggling it out from under the Japanese. Carnahan is let out of prison to help.Newspaperman Royer convinces government officials of a plan to obtain rubber by smuggling it out from under the Japanese. Carnahan is let out of prison to help.

  • Director
    • Richard Thorpe
  • Writers
    • Frank Fenton
    • Manchester Boddy
  • Stars
    • Spencer Tracy
    • James Stewart
    • Valentina Cortese
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.5/10
    1.6K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Richard Thorpe
    • Writers
      • Frank Fenton
      • Manchester Boddy
    • Stars
      • Spencer Tracy
      • James Stewart
      • Valentina Cortese
    • 32User reviews
    • 11Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 2 wins total

    Photos36

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    Top cast59

    Edit
    Spencer Tracy
    Spencer Tracy
    • Carnahan
    James Stewart
    James Stewart
    • John Royer
    Valentina Cortese
    Valentina Cortese
    • Luana
    • (as Valentina Cortesa)
    Sydney Greenstreet
    Sydney Greenstreet
    • The Dutchman
    John Hodiak
    John Hodiak
    • Kellar
    Lionel Barrymore
    Lionel Barrymore
    • John Manchester
    Gilbert Roland
    Gilbert Roland
    • Romano
    Roland Winters
    Roland Winters
    • Bruno Gruber
    Richard Loo
    Richard Loo
    • Colonel Genichi Tomura
    Ian MacDonald
    Ian MacDonald
    • Carlos Tassuma
    Tom Helmore
    Tom Helmore
    • Matisson
    Lester Matthews
    Lester Matthews
    • Matisson
    • (scenes deleted)
    Joel Allen
    • Federal Agent
    • (uncredited)
    Besmark Auelua
    • Henchman
    • (uncredited)
    George M. Carleton
    George M. Carleton
    • Small Businessman
    • (uncredited)
    Silan Chan
    • Malay Girl
    • (uncredited)
    Spencer Chan
    Spencer Chan
    • Chinese Shipmaster
    • (uncredited)
    Joseph Crehan
    Joseph Crehan
    • Businessman with Pipe
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • Richard Thorpe
    • Writers
      • Frank Fenton
      • Manchester Boddy
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews32

    6.51.5K
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    Featured reviews

    8xnet95

    Surprisingly good!

    I'm an American ex-pat living in Malaysia, so I thought I'd watch this to see if there were any old scenes of life in Malaysia in the late 40's. Well, as I expected, there weren't, BUT the actual movie and story were really well done and interesting.

    I thought the dialog in this movie was the best I have heard from this era. I watch a lot of "noir", and this dialog was more realistic with a flair that wasn't overdone. For example, the interaction between Spencer Tracy and his girl wasn't flowery or sappy, it was kind of hip and snappy without being too "40's". Also, every line out of Greenstreet's mouth was sublime.

    Casting was awesome! It seemed like everybody was perfect for their role. Greenstreet was fantastic as an almost omnipotent bar owner. Tracy was rough and rugged. Stewart was convincing as a sort-of-drifter that finally finds purpose in his life. Plus, you get a cameo of Lionel Barrymore, which is worth it's weight in gold.

    This is a "feel good" movie about losers and dregs of society helping to win the war. It's tough, violent, and not everybody gets out alive. And, it's patriotic without being sappy. Watch this one on the Fourth of July, and you can't go wrong!
    6secondtake

    A middling movie a little late in the game...fun, but not intense

    Malaya (1949)

    It would be nice to love this movie—with a strong theme of wartime ingenuity and bravery, and with three stellar actors—but by the end I was thinking everyone involved was just going through the motions. That's probably enough in many ways with people this naturally gifted on screen, and the movie is enjoyable, no question. With all the borrowings or references to earlier classics (Sydney Greenstreet even has a big bird as a pet, as in "Casablanca"), it makes for a fun time.

    The premise starts with some very compact storytelling—a somewhat disreputable man (James Stewart) is overheard saying he could smuggle rubber out of British Malaya (now Malaysia). It's WWII and the Army likes the idea enough to send him off with an ex-con (Spencer Tracy) who knows the area well. (This is all arranged with the help of Lionel Barrymore in a small role.)

    Then the adventure begins as they penetrate with surprising ease the rubber plantations and arrange with the generally friendly locals and ex-pats to get their hidden stockpiles. The Japanese do eventually catch on and there is fun there, but not before a couple of torch songs and some humorous excess as usual from the likable Greenstreet.

    Frankly, things never get exciting or even suspenseful, though interesting all along. One huge problem (for me) was a complete lack of details. The two men would say, okay, let's go get this rubber here, and they meet the plantation owner and there is some talk and then suddenly they are going down the river with some little barges. The Japanese have no suspicions, and the local smugglers are all these cheerful Resistance Fighter types who really like to help a lot.

    It would be fun to know if a young viewer finds this exotic and fun or laughable. It's somewhere between in all. And what honestly holds it together for anyone who likes the actors is just watching familiar faces in new roles. That is one of the endless interests of the movies.

    See it? Sure, if you already like older films or WWII films. It's not bad. The director Richard Thorpe is quite unknown these days, but the cinematographer is a standard bearer of he period, George Folsey, and that makes every scenes look terrific. Yeah, it's not at all bad. But it ain't great, either.
    7jhkp

    Little-known chapter of WWII history

    This is a good, not great, action-adventure picture based on the true account of how very necessary rubber was gotten out of Malaya, under the nose of the Japanese, for the Allied war effort in World War Two.

    Spencer Tracy and James Stewart are teamed as a two-fisted con (sprung from Alcatraz for the job) and a hard-bitten reporter recruited by American intelligence (represented by John Hodiak).

    There's some action, some atmosphere, some romance. It's not an exciting film, really, but the premise is unusual enough, and with some effort on my part, I stayed with it, and felt it had a decent payoff.

    Like a lot of other MGM films of the time, the entire foreign locale was recreated on the back lot and the sound stages of the studio. You may recognize the river area and other locations from earlier films (Tarzan films, for example).

    I'm not sure I bought Tracy as the tough nut, Carnahan. At least, not at his age. (He did sometimes play these kinds of roles much earlier in his career.) Here, I would rather have seen Clark Gable. The lines, the attitudes would have suited him better.

    Jimmy Stewart doesn't really seem ideally cast, either. He's very good, but he's not exactly right.

    Sydney Greenstreet, Valentina Cortesa, Gilbert Roland, Richard Loo and Lionel Barrymore round out the cast.

    Though not a thrill a minute, Malaya is at least a fairly intelligent picture that tells a little known story of WWII heroism.
    8wmjahn

    Sydney Greenstreet is superb (as always) !!

    There is a scene that makes the whole picture worthwhile (although it is otherwise pretty ordinary):

    Sydney GREENSTREET is entering a room after app. 2/3 of the movie, where Spencery Tracey has just been "treated kindly" in an "interview", Greenstreet is sweating (as always), sitting down and looking at the molestor of Tracy, then says (roughly): "If you say this was necessary, then of course it was necessary, but wasn't that much for a bottle of poor booze?". The officer say: "But he broke our rules". Greenstreet: "A man who drinks and then doesn't break any rules is no man. Drinking and making troubles goes together, this is also a rule." What a line !! Officer: "I love your logic." Of course these are not exactly the lines from the picture, cause I saw the German dubbed version and re-translated them, but they can only be better in the English version.

    Hilarious! Tape it, when shown on TV next time and get to that scene, it is just great!
    deschreiber

    not very good and terrible miscasting

    Even with a better cast, this would not have been much of a film. On the surface it looks like it will be some sort of action film, with spies going into enemy territory to steal, or rather negotiate on the black market for, essential supplies. But there's little intrigue and very little action. Most of the scenes are simply characters sitting in chairs talking to one another. The surprise at the very end of the film is so far-fetched as to undercut the credibility of nearly everything else. The love story involves two people who have no reason to be attracted to one another. There are elements of Casablanca here, set in a country occupied by the enemy, a nightclub owner consorting with an enemy officer, the gambling being fixed by the owner to pay someone he wants to do a favour to, and a cynic acquiring higher ideals; but it's all a very pale imitation of Casablanca. Some comments suggest that there is something "noirish" about the film. Well. it's in black and white, but it does not have the requisite sense of evil and foreboding.

    But the biggest failure is in the casting. James Stewart is supposed to play a sour, hard-bitten, cynical operator who finds a little patriotism late in life. But Stewart can't help coming across as a nice guy. He may speak the tough words, but the tone is wrong. His eyes shift in that self-deprecating way of his, he carries himself in that modest way of his, and he just doesn't come off as the character he is supposed to be playing. When his partner is punching someone over and over in the face, Stewart looks repelled by the brutality. Spencer Tracy is probably even worse in his role as a tough jailbird who is let out of Alcatraz to help in the mission. He looks old; his figure is dumpy, his way of moving is slow. He threatens a man, but he doesn't seem very scary. (DeNiro would know how to do that.) He is the romantic interest of a nightclub singer who is crazy over him, yet he's way too old for her and doesn't have anything of the sort of animal magnetism that might make him believable as her lover. In fact, to be honest, there were moments when Tracy looked like he couldn't act. The Japanese have been beating him, trying to get him to talk; Tracy frowns a little but registers no pain, no discomfort, no fear; he shakes it off and then looks comfortable. When he dumps his girlfriend to keep her safe, his face shows nothing.

    I forced myself to watch to the end because I have an interest in Malaya. On its own terms, this movie would have lost me long before the mid-way point.

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    Related interests

    Still frame
    Adventure
    Mahershala Ali and Alex R. Hibbert in Moonlight (2016)
    Drama
    Band of Brothers (2001)
    War

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Sydney Greenstreet's final film.
    • Goofs
      One scene features wild chimpanzees. Chimps are natives of Africa, not Malaya.
    • Quotes

      John Royer: You have to remember, this guy's a German.

      Carnaghan: Yeah, but he's a greedy man, and greed has a nationality all its own.

    • Connections
      Edited from They Were Expendable (1945)
    • Soundtracks
      Blue Moon
      (uncredited)

      Written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart

      Performed by Valentina Cortese (as 'Luana'), also whistled by James Stewart

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    FAQ18

    • How long is Malaya?Powered by Alexa

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • April 24, 1950 (Sweden)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Operation Malaya
    • Filming locations
      • Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden - 301 N. Baldwin Avenue, Arcadia, California, USA
    • Production company
      • Loew's
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • $2,396,000 (estimated)
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      • 1h 38m(98 min)
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.37 : 1

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