Opium

The idea of drug trafficking and addiction as social threats didn't emerge until the post-war years – when marijuana and heroin no longer confined themselves to urban blacks and jazz musicians. Though the subject would seem a natural for film noir, the cycle as a whole ignored it, except for odd references (Jules Amthor drugging Philip Marlowe in Murder, My Sweet, for example).

But in the late 1940s, two films took on the phenomenon directly: Port of New York and To The Ends of the Earth. Both films show the stridency that would soon come to be characteristic of the Red Scare films of the early 1950s. Port of New York, however, effectively explored its noirish milieu, while To The Ends of the Earth harks back to the international espionage pictures of wartime and the pre-war years.

Treasury agent Dick Powell witnesses the mass death of Asian `slaves,' jettisoned overboard in chains from a Japanese freighter off the coast of San Francisco. Soon, in relentless pursuit of the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, he circles the globe from Shanghai to Egypt to Cuba and finally to New York. His travels curiously intertwine with those of an American widow (Signe Hasso) and her young Chinese ward (Maylia). He uncovers a ruthless (`fanatical' is the preferred adjective) worldwide conspiracy to grow, distribute and sell opium, ultimately refined into heroin. The case doesn't crack until his ocean liner begins entry into New York harbor.

It's a good-bad movie. One of the burdens the noir cycle occasionally had to shoulder was paying homage to various principalities and duchies of the U.S. Government, generally J. Edgar Hoover's Federal Bureau of Investigation (as in Call Northside 777) or the Treasury Department (as in T-Men). Here, it's the Narcotics Bureau headed by Harry Anslinger, who graces the movie with his presence in three cameos. The requisite tone of reverence is anathema to noir, and Powell's voice-over narration drones on and on, a powerful opiate in itself.

But the nuts and bolts of the drug trade operated by a global cartel retain surprising interest, and the movie's pace picks up as it progresses, right up to a fairly shocking twist at the end. Many of its attitudes and assumptions show their age, but To The Ends of the Earth ultimately delivers its product.

A fun, serial-like adventure movie which presages "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and that harkens back to a time when the world seemed like a bigger and more mysterious place. Dick Powell is the quintessential tough guy who also loves his rose garden. Excellent twist ending.

Strangely neglected film, probably because its view of the international drug trade seems rather quaint by today's standards. Still, a wonderful time capsule that reminds us of such forgotten history as Japan's wartime domination of China and the crumbling colonial empires of England and France in the Middle East. Also, the slave trade theme continues (sadly) to resonate, given the recent headlines about Chinese workers being smuggled into the States as sweatshop laborers.

Dick Powell's a detective again in To The Ends Of The Earth though his name here isn't Richard Diamond or Philip Marlowe. Instead he's what we would now call a DEA agent though that agency didn't exist back in those days. He works for the Treasury's Narcotics Enforcement Unit and a mystery involving a really large stash of opium takes him around the world and literally To The Ends Of The Earth in solving it.

The film is narrated by Powell and this Columbia film is very similar in style to those 20th Century Fox documentary classics The House On 92nd Street and The Street With No Name from Henry Hathaway. The director is Robert Stevenson who is far more familiar to viewers for his later exclusive work for Walt Disney studios in such things as Old Yeller and Mary Poppins. You can hardly believe the same guy directed those items as well as To The Ends Of The Earth.

Powell almost circumnavigates the globe, starting out in San Francisco and then going to Shanghai, Cairo, Beirut, Havana, and finally New York in pursuit of an international narcotics smuggling gang. The story takes place in the pre-World War II years while Japan occupied Manchuria. The most ridiculous part of the film is the notion that the Japanese are behind the opium trade as part of their war policy though the gang is certainly international enough.

What makes the film relevant for today is the plea for international cooperation to put an end to the drug trade. In fact this film was one of the to even talk about drug addiction, a problem not mentionable under The Code. Opium dependence knows no borders, respects no nationalities.

The film will also have a surprise ending that you might not expect coming. The only hint is a bit showing a portrait of who turns out to be the chief villain. The artist's interpretation of said villain screams out who's behind it all.

Powell gets good support from Signe Hasso, Ludwig Donath, Vladimir Sokoloff and Maylia in telling roles. To The Ends Of The Earth is one of the best films Dick Powell made in his post musical period, don't miss it if you can.

This was a combination documentary/fictional melodrama "based on actual incidents from the files of the Narcotics Division of the United States Treasury Department" for the "purpose of setting forth the functions and procedures of the Division" headed by Commissioner Harry J. Anslinger, who appears as himself in the opening, middle and end of the film. One of the "thou-shalt-nots" that was part of the Production Code list that had to be adhered to before a film could be issued an approval number---in this case PCA No. 12390---was an edict against showing any kind of illegal drug trafficking. The producers fought for and acquired a revision in the Code for this film.

To The Ends of the Earth is directed by Robert Stevenson and written by Jay Richard Kennedy. It stars Dick Powell, Signe Hasso, Maylia, Ludwig Donath and Vladimir Sokoloff. Music is by George Duning and cinematography by Burnett Guffey.

Dick Powell stars as Treasury Agent Commissioner Michael Barrows, who after witnessing a terrible incident at sea goes on the trail of a major narcotics ring. Part docu-noir, part straight out crime drama, Stevenson's film is a pic that demands your full attention. Such are the intricacies of a plot involving a global narcotics operation, and the number of characters involved as Barrows literally country hops, it may even be a picture that improves because of a "needed" second viewing. Not to say that is a requisite, the structure and pace of the piece simply may not be your thing, but I'd like to put it on record that it seems an improver and definitely one to watch and listen to carefully. Helps, also, that there is much narration to aid the complexity of the case.

It begins in shocking fashion, with an event that has the ability to take you aback, and with your attention grabbed we are then on a jaunt with Barrows, getting up close and personal with either shifty persons or loyal international people willing to help the intrepid agent. He has dry wit and a cunning knowing, a guy we basically like to be around, with Powell (not for the first time in such a role) splendidly in character. There was a large budget afforded the production, so the near documentary approach doesn't look cheap (helps having Guffey on photography duties), while the MPA eased their "drugs in film" regulations to let the pic breath an air of much needed realism.

With the evils of narcotic smuggling given intelligent filmic substance - we learn much about the manufacture of opium and how it is hidden and retrieved etc - and some very drastic scenes involving murder and suicides, this is mature film making. Not all the cast leave lasting impressions (apart from Powell they were largely unknown at the time), and some of the speech sections are a little clunky, but this is an utterly polished piece of adult crime drama film making. 7.5/10