Alan Ladd and twenty girls - trapped by the rapacious Japs!
1943-04-21
N/A
79 min
Shortly before Pearl Harbor, American opportunist Jones and partner Johnny are in China to sell oil to the invading Japanese army. Cynical about the sufferings of the Chinese, Jones meets compassionate teacher Carolyn Grant while travelling cross-country to Shanghai. Sparks fly between these strong-willed characters, neither budging an inch. But when Jones witnesses a Japanese atrocity, his feelings toward his customers (and Carolyn) begin to change...
Alan Ladd is "Jones", a rather cynical American in China working in the oil industry. He doesn't really care who he sells to - and given the population as been under the heel of the invading Japanese forces for many years, that doesn't make him many friends amongst the locals. On his travels, though, he encounters the equally headstrong "Carolyn" (Loretta Young) who is generally appalled by the treatment of the local population. At loggerheads most of the time, it is only when he witnesses the true extent of the brutality of the occupying forces that he decides that maybe he ought to help. There is a degree of chemistry between the usually rather wooden Ladd and the normally more engaging Young, but given much of this is set in the cab of a truck, the production is pretty static and the narrative is very wordy. There is some action, but it has a distinct wartime propagandist style to it which undoubtedly fulfilled a function in 1943, but has dated rather badly now. It's watchable enough, and William Bendix adds a little to divert from the intensity of the simmering rapport between the two stars, but the whole film is pretty unremarkable fayre that you'll soon forget.
