China Seas

China Seas (1935)

Runtime: 87 minutes

Directed by: Tay Garnett

Starring: Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Rosalind Russell, Lewis Stone

From: MGM

First, an update. With the hurricane and other things, I did not mention before that on Tuesday night I rewatched the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre; it's still great. As for Hurricane Matthew, while I am not in its direct path, I'll still get plenty of wind and rain. Who knows when and if the power will go out, in other words. So, I probably won't worry about watching and reviewing any movies for a few days. Now, onto this review:

So yeah, in a matter of hours Hurricane Matthew will hit Florida. Praise the Lord I don't live on the Atlantic coast of the state, which is going to get slammed real hard. I live in the center, a little west of Orlando. Still, it's going to rain a few inches on Friday and winds could be as high as 60 miles per hour (almost 100 kilometers per hour) so in case the power goes out, it's a good idea if I don't worry about watching and reviewing any films for a few days. I am pretty certain I'll be fine so I am not one of the people in Florida people should be concerned about.

Anyhow, as I have more than one mutual who usually only watch movies from the 30's and 40's and they likely followed me because I sometimes watch films from that era... I better not forget to return to the Golden Age of Hollywood at least once in awhile, you know. I randomly picked this out for streaming via Amazon Instant. It reunites Clark Gable and Jean Harlow from Red Dust; indeed, it isn't too dissimilar from Red Dust. They are in an exotic location (this time, on a ship sailing from Hong Kong and there's the threat of “Malay pirates”) and Grant is in a love triangle, this time with the earthy Harlow and the aristocratic Rosalind Russell (no relation); what a difficult situation that a lot of people would want to have.

While you do see various Asian-American actors throughout, it is no surprise that there's still racism to deal with. The most memorable example is how Gable describes English rivers as being clean but Chinese rivers are “yellow, dirty and muddy”; it should be easy to figure out what they really are referring to. Also, Hattie McDaniel is present as Jean's maid and unfortunately, if you've seen Gone With the Wind... if you can get past that... while this is not as good as Red Dust, I still found this to be pretty good. There are various colorful characters, from a constant drunk to Wallace Beery as a guy who you should naturally be suspicious of because he's played by Wallace Beery, an older captain who signs onto the voyage when they're in a jam and he's looking for redemption for having previous been raided by pirates and yes, pirates do show up, what with riches being hidden on the ship. To me, Harlow was the stand-out with her performance where even she doesn't know who to trust and whose side she should be on.

The film is pretty entertaining for what it is. There's plenty of snappy dialogue, unexpected moments such as trap shooting off the deck of the ship (?!) and in what I actually did not know beforehand, the ship going through a typhoon. Talk about irony. Even without that surprise, this was still a quite enjoyable watch and I am glad I saw it when I did.