Intriga en Shangai

George Raft is about to be thrown out of his hotel room when he steals a shipment from Shanghai black market boss June Havoc and spreads some good Scotch around. He also blackmails Miss Havoc into a partnership. His attention to business is distracted when old buddy Tom Tully shows up and begins to write stories on the Black Market and to clear Raft of the offenses he and others were court-martialed for, as well as Helena Carter for a rescue agency to succor the orphans starving because of the black market, and to find out the truth about her brother, who was also found guilty in the same trial that broke Raft.

Raft is, we are led to believe, innocent of the underlying charges, although he must now, given the structure of this Bogart-like tale of redemption break away from the dark forces that now surround him. Fortunately, he's good with his fists, and the Chinese orphans have no trouble recognizing him as a good guy, so we should too.

Raft certainly dived deeper into the bad-guy millieu than Bogart did during the star phase of his career, but Raft always had the reputation of being hooked into the wise guys. The story isn't as polished, and Raft can't show the inner struggle as well as Bogey. Still, it's a decent example of the sort of noir-influenced story-telling which was so popular at the moment, that it would soon become a drug on the market..... if not quite yet. With Phillip Ahn, Marvin Miller, Jay C. Flippen, Charles Lane, and Michael Ansara.

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.

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.

"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.

Though not the greatest film by a long shot, the earnestness in bringing to the foreground the nasty underbelly of the black market in post-war Asia is a major redeeming value of "Intrigue." That innocent people starved while criminals prospered is a fact, and still occurs, unfortunately.

The story is told through the plot line of an American ex-military pilot in Shanghai. Brad Dunham (George Raft) along with three other flyers during World War II were court martialed and kicked out, accused of black market activity. The unjust shame has taken its toll, and Brad's three friends have died, including one by suicide. Brad himself now hangs out in Shanghai and has adapted to his infamy by turning to trade of which he was accused - smuggling. Meanwhile, his journalist pal Marc Andrews (Tom Tully) and the sister (Helena Carter) of one of the dead pilots are seeking to find the truth.

Andrews' bigger story, of course, is the depth of damage done by the black market in China. Little does he know that Brad has joined forces with the dishy boss (June Havoc) of the main smuggling ring. Meanwhile Brad becomes exposed to that dark side by visiting children at an orphanage and seeing the homeless, starving people in the streets. Brad's better side does not have to fight very hard to gain the upper hand, but the challenge is to make right out his wrongs.

The direction is rarely inspired. Though there are a few nice bits of dialogue, the writing has an unfortunate trend toward the precious. Raft's relationship with either woman is not all that interesting. (There seems more reality in his male relationships and his interaction with the children.) It would have been a big improvement had the music in general been more honest to the setting. And yes, there is some stereotype in the Chinese-ness, but it is not the insulting subservience we see so much of in the Hollywood of the day. Plus we are briefly blessed by the presence of Peter Chong as a courageous editor.

Tully has the most passionate role as the voice of justice and social responsibility, and he's very good. It's a rather idealized picture of a journalist, but that's what people really want to see, not some boozing sellout. Raft, too, when free from the film noir elements, is earnest in the real theme of the picture. It's those film noir elements that seem to stiffen him and make the action implausible.

Still, the main subject of the film gives it human importance.