Girl of the Port

In a nutshell: a veteran (Reginal Sharland) runs away to Fiji after WWI, becomes a hopeless alcoholic, and is picked on by a bully (Mitchell Lewis) until a plucky young woman (Sally O'Neil) helps him out. There are some interesting war scenes in the film's opening 5 minutes or so. While PTSD is portrayed somewhat one-dimensionally, as Sharland's irrational fear of fire after having been attacked with flamethrowers, it was impressive to see a film in 1930 show the hellscape of trench warfare, as well as its lasting psychological effects. The racism in the film is enlightening in some ways, such as showing the hypocrisy of black veterans having gone from heroes during the war to "boys" or "baboons" afterwards. It's still a bit tough to hear those comments, as well as toasts to "white supremacy" (literally), the hypocrisy of Lewis's character heightened by his being a "half-caste", with associated negative implications, and the natives shown dancing through fire as the whites peer down at them. However, all of that makes the film more interesting than the love story, which is melodramatic and stilted. There's no star power here, and O'Neil's voice is grating. The film zips along at 65 minutes, but the best scenes are in the first half, should you feel like bailing out.

It would be so easy to overlook this movie: the dialogue is so awful, especially for Josie - her lines in particular are cringeworthy. And the actress playing Josie is cringeworthy as well. But if you can look past that, you will see a sincere look at the PTSD faced by soldiers and alcoholism, and a blunt, unvarnished, blunt presentation of racism - is this the first mention of "white supremacy" in a movie? And there are characters looking down on someone as low class for their racist views - when have you ever seen that in a movie before the 1950s? Thankfully, it's short, because I'm not sure I could stand the bad dialogue longer than that.

The film begins during WWI. A group of British soldiers are fighting and are then attacked by German soldiers with flame throwers. It's all very horrific and only one of the Brits survives, though he's injured.

The story then picks up a short time after the war. The injured soldier, Jim, is a hopeless drunk and living in Fiji of all places. There, a local jerk-face, McEwen, spends his time bullying everyone- -especially Jim. He likes keeping Jim drunk and pathetic. But when Josie inexplicably arrives, she takes pity on Jim and helps him regain his manhood and get off the bottle.

This is an unusual film because at that time, few pictures talked about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder--a term coined many years after the film. Is it a great film? No. It has plenty of problems, such as some of the acting as well as the film's unintentionally racist bent (such as calling folks 'half-caste' and in one scene Jim is angry and calls a local 'a black ape'). PC, it is NOT...but the film is a product of its times...and still offers some unusual and interesting story elements.

British Captain, Jim (Reginald Sharland) suffers from a form of 'shell-shock' as his command is wiped out by German Storm-Troopers with Flame-Throwers. Exiles himself to a south-sea island becoming a lush. Enter Josie (Sally O'Neil) young lady of the world, but all around good egg. She helps Jim overcome his fear of fire, booze and the bully of the island, McEwen (Mitchell Lewis). There is more too the story so suggest you watch it.

The villain played by Lewis had a long and productive career in character parts from the silent era too the late 1950s. Sharland's career was rather short lived and this could be considered his biggest film role. Ms. O'Neil achieved success in the mid 1920s, but by the mid 1930s her career in Hollywood was done. Surprising as She projected a attractive and vivacious image.

It's hard to believe this is 1930.

This top-notch film includes PTSD, alcoholism, racism, sexual harassment, and even fire-walking. It's white-supremacy themes could come out of recent headlines in VA. It goes on to explore the motivation some people have for looking down on other races.

And I think it took 50 years for fire-walking to become popular.

Sally O'Neil is perfect. She gets all the best lines, and delivers them convincingly.