Die Bestie von Schanghai

Just after the end of WW2, there were tons of more or less espionage yarns, taking place in many exotic countries, desert, jungles, not necessarily in America. I admit and confess that I am a bit lost among all those films. This one brings nothing more, but that's a pretty good entertainment, especially if you are a George Raft's fan. He made several other films whith director Edwin Marin: RACE STREET, NOCTURNE, JOHNNY ANGEL.... So, here, you may confound with any of those other films, except maybe RACE STREET, my favorite. I repeat, this film is a good adventure and actioner, no problem, but it will be rapidly forgotten.

"Intrigue" focuses on Shanghai's black market (for rice, whiskey, etc...). The film sometimes gets preachy about some criminals getting rich while many people are poor, but mostly it displays conflicts between an interesting group of characters. People interested in China in the 1940s will enjoy it, but a much better film is "The Shanghai Gesture", made in 1941 by Josef von Sternberg, and starring Gene Tierney.

"Intrigue" is a film that is easier to understand if you are aware of the history of China. The story is set in Shanghai in 1947....as the country was embroiled in a civil war between the government and Mao's communists. As a result, poverty and hunger were rampant...and according to the movie, scumbag opportunists were hoarding the food and selling it at astronomical prices.

Brad Dunham (George Raft) is an ex-US Army Air Corps pilot. He apparently was dishonorably discharged and instead of returning home, he's stayed in China. Now, he has a chance to become a big-wig in the black market...but his newspaper friend (Tom Tully) is disgusted and confronts Brad. What's next? See the film.

While George Raft's emotional and acting range in his films is limited, here he's pretty good and I attribute most of this to the script. Well written and never dull...this one surprised me in a pleasant way.

Embittered by his wrongful dismissal from the air force, Brad Dunham joins a gang of black marketeers in Shanghai, and is surprised to find his partner is a beautiful, though dangerous, woman. When a reporter friend turns up, Brad is disconcerted to find he is doing an expose on the racketeers, which leads the flyer to an unexpected discovery....

An enjoyable George Raft thriller that paints the dark underbelly of black marketing very well. It's a bit preachy, but can be quite moving in places. June Havoc does well as a shady character. Helena Carter is good as the romantic interest, and who helps guide George Raft to do the right thing, and fight against black marketeering. Quite fast-paced with some good action and drama.

Into a web of Asian intrigue flies, from a `secret airstrip in French Indochina today,' pilot George Raft; at the center of the web waits spider-woman June Havoc. Raft is the sole survivor of four wartime buddies discharged by court-martial; now he runs contraband. But the risks are high and he wants more money; his superior (Marvin Miller) balks so Raft goes over his head to the boss (Havoc). She runs her criminal empire garbed in elaborate ladies'-longs and makes him her partner - and maybe something more.

But another side of him pulls him toward Helena Carter, come from the States to vindicate her dead brother, one of his disgraced buddies. And into the mix, too, comes another old friend (Tom Tully), a roving newspaper man investigating the black market that keeps the city's populace near starvation but that's also Raft's bread and butter. The sloe-eyed orphans which Carter helps to feed start to gnaw away at Raft's sense of his `right to live first cabin.'

A romantic adventure along the lines of Singapore, Saigon and Calcutta, Intrigue could use a good deal more of it. The movie starts strongly and promises twists and turns as intricate as the back alleys of Shanghai. But then it hits a sentimental, sermonizing slump about how the black market devalues the Chinese dollar, thus keeping rice and `canned goods' from the mouths of enfeebled children, and it never quite climbs out again.

Because not much else is going on, it becomes hard to ignore the clichés that keep piling up: Jay C. Flippen as a salt-of-the-earth bartender, Philip Ahn as the trusty native sidekick, Miller and Dan Seymour as Hollywood heavies who fall short of any real menace. Havoc's glamorous presence can't compensate for the thin writing in one of her too few movie roles (she was far more fun with Alan Ladd in Chicago Deadline). His bomber jacket and white aviator's scarf can't quite disguise Raft's thickened midriff or the fact that he's on the shady side of 50 (he commands attention only when he's nattily tailored). The movie should have been slimmed down and barbered up, too; it might just have made the jump from forgettable to passable.