Die Bestie von Schanghai

Peppered by gunfire, daring pilot, George Raft evades the bullets to undertake his twilight flight. Having made a miraculous landing in swirling mist, it comes to light that the brave, brazen flyer is deeply involved in black market activities.

Not best pleased at being in the cockpit of a crate full of bullet holes, the bold, brash Raft demands a meeting with the boss, the MR BIG of the organization, who turns out to be MISS BIG, June Havoc. With his foot firmly in the door, passions start to ignite and a tacky, showy affair begins, leaving those close to Havoc seriously underwhelmed.

Raft's unseemly dismissal from the armed forces rears its ugly head when the sister of one of his deceased crew (Helena Carter) befriends him, forewarning her with, "I'm a bottle with a label....says poison." Another blast from Raft's past is old buddy, Tom Tully, now a journalist, fervently striving to expose black market corruption and its devastating impact on ordinary people, ravaged by off the scale inflation, meagre diets and the very real threat of starvation.

Take away the unusual setting and you have a formulaic, identikit noir: The cynical loner, complicit with a corrupt lifestyle, the femme fatale, the dutiful girl, the bully boy syndicate and even the title song trundled out during a night club scene. A generous Len Goodman se-ven, for a steadily maintained tempo, decent entertainment value and a couple of surprises. It's an enjoyable movie. Raft clearly enjoyed breaking a chair over Marvin Miller's head, though whether the experience was appreciated in equal measure by Miller...or the chair is open to question.

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.

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.

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.

Post war Kuomintang China was not a great place as Intrigue shows us. The black market was operating in full force. What is not shown and what Hollywood in 1947 would not show is how slowly but surely Mao Tse-Tung's Chinese Communists were gaining the upper hand. What is not shown is that villainess June Havoc surely could not have operated the way she did without the connivance of Chiang Kai-Shek's government.

Intrigue casts George Raft in this independent film released through United Artists as a cashiered pilot who falls in with June Havoc and her black market enterprise. Appealing to the better angels of his nature is Helena Carter who is the sister of a dead pilot friend of Raft's also cashiered. Carter works for a relief organization so she sees the very human side of suffering, especially from the youngest victims.

What Havoc is dealing with is food and medicine. She's the main reason for watching Intrigue. I saw this film decades ago and it's her portrayal that sticks in your mind.

Raft is his usual tight lipped self. Intrigue for some reason has become lost over the years. If it ever gets broadcast it's worth a look especially for June Havoc.