L'or de la Nouvelle-Guinée

Typical of the Paramount studios exotic features from this era, fifties, a charm provider which we will never find later, especially now, in the 20....' Lewis Foster, Edward Ludwig, Byron Haskin - NAKED JUNGLE - were the studio directors in charge of those little jewells. Stories, topics were always the same but who cares? Only focus on the settings, even artificial, scores, photography, and the overall atmosphere of adventures to the outer limits of planet earth, south seas, tropics, where the sea is always blue and the sun shining. This one is among my favourites, I don't know why. The presence of the usual Rhonda Fleming has of course much to do with it....

Full of double crosses and deceit, Crosswinds centers on a search for gold. However, does it really? I wouldn't have really known it was an "adventure" flick, since the romance was much more compelling. John Payne and Rhonda Fleming are great together, and she gives him such moony eyes, it's enough to make him forget all about Maureen O'Hara! It's love at first sight for Rhonda, and as soon as she sees John exert his manliness by punching out her luncheon companion, she comes on pretty strong. She comes over to his houseboat late at night and asks if she can stay, and in the morning she's breathless around him - even before they go for a spontaneous swim in the ocean.

Both stars show off their bods in this movie, so if you're in it for the beef- or cheese-cake, you won't be disappointed. There's literally a scene where John rips his shirt off while in the middle of a conversation for no reason. It's very funny, but hopefully he was a good sport about it. Hopefully he and Rhonda knew this wasn't going to be the next Gone With the Wind. Although, Rhonda really put her heart into the role. I've always liked her, but I've known she wasn't a wonderful actress. Perhaps she got along really well with John Payne, or perhaps she responded to Lewis Foster's direction, but she seemed to be the only cast member who actually acted. I'm looking forward to seeing her other three movies with John, to see if they maintain their chemistry.

This adventure is set in New Guinea, where schooner skipper Steve Singleton embarks on a treacherous quest to retrieve sunken gold bullion and reclaim his vessel after getting duped by schemers Nick Brandon and "Jumbo" Johnson.

John Payne and Rhonda Fleming get involved in seeking gold bullion from a sunken plane in New Guinea. Devious passengers, including Forest Tucker are some of things John Payne has to contend with. Though they are the least he has to deal with - There's local headhunter natives that put up a fight, which garners some rousing action sequences. Crosswinds is a very engaging and rousing 1950's jungle/diving adventure with some good characterisations and diving sequences, which are quite dreamy.

"Crosswinds" is a very enjoyable adventure and mystery set in the South Pacific around what then was colonial New Guinea. It was under Australian administration following WW II. Filmed in color, with sea and maritime scenes shot on the coast of Florida, this film has a small cast but some popular leads and supporting actors of the day. It doesn't take long to realize how the title fits the story perfectly.

This is a fine mixture of intrigue, mystery, jungle action, romance and light comedy. When Steve Singleton sails his primo schooner into a New Guinea port looking for freight hauling or other business, he has no idea that he would become mixed up in a gold-theft plot with more double-crossing characters than one could shake a stick at. John Payne's Singleton soon learns that he can trust no one.

The intrigue involves plot twists, arrests, double-crosses, a missing plane with a huge gold shipment aboard, a dead pilot, hostile natives, rescue of the female lead as hostage, some jungle fighting, and romance. The latter develops with Katherine Shelley, played by Rhonda Fleming. She works for the company that transports regular shipments of gold in the region. Nick Brandon, played by Robert Lowery, is the company pilot. He had served in the war with Singleton and had double-crossed him once before.

Forrest Tucker is Jumbo Johnson, an American who knows his way around the area. He has plotted a gold hist with Brandon. But first he pulls a double-cross on Singleton that gets him jailed and his beautiful schooner put on the auction block to pay his fine. Naturally, Jumbo winds up with the boat. Things go awry in the gold theft plan, and that leads to most of the action and rest of the story. After Brandon ditches his plane in an inland lake - with plans for them to recover the gold later, he is killed by natives. Shelley had flown with him that day and was captured by the tribe.

Two Englishmen appear on the scene, having mysteriously lost the skipper of the small motor-powered craft they are on. The two are known con-men by the authorities, but not yet of anyone else. Alan Mowbray and John Abbott are hilarious in their parts as Sir Cecil Daubrey and Algernon Mousey Sykes. They are the way that Singleton is able to get transport to find his boat and eventually become part of the gold discovery plans. But after they see Brandon's body float by in a canoe with a spear in his back, they first have to rescue Shelley.

The fun ramps up with double-crosses among double-crossers, another encounter with the natives to escape the area, and sailing back to civilization. But who will make it to the end, what will happen to the gold, and what will the future be for these characters? It's a very fun film to watch.

Here are some favorite lines from this film.

Katherine Shelley, "I heard the music, so I put two and two together and said to myself... mmm, you're cooking pancakes." Steve Singleton, "You don't make sense, but you've got a pretty good sniffer."

Katherine, "See, you are running away." Steve, "From what?" Katherine, " From the world."

Sir Cedric Daubrey, "Well, let's go somewhere where the ears of the cockroaches are not so large."

Steve Singleton, "The first sign of a double-cross from you two cockroaches and I'll pin faces with Johnson against you."

Sir Cecil Daubrey, " Whereas Mousey and I were two against one, we are now distinctly in the minority. I don't think you have to doubt our love and affection."

Algernon 'Mousey' Sykes, "I never had the benefit of anyone at Oxford, but we think alike." Sir Cecil Daubrey, "That, I question. Let's say that objectively we are working toward the same end."

Sir Cecil Daubrey, "I do rather pride myself on employing a certain integrity in my skullduggery."

Sir Cecil Daubrey, "Cheating the government isn't stealing. It's a national pastime."

Singleton, "Unless a man wants to live on dried fish and coconuts, he has to run away form the world between jobs."

Jumbo Johnson, "Your partners?" Singleton, "Sure. Two of the scummiest waterfront rats that ever put a knife in a man's back You'd like 'em, Jumbo. They're just your type."

Jumbo, "Singleton, before we bring up these last two bars, I'd like to make you a proposition." Singleton, "It'll be crooked, but I'm listening."

Singleton, He wants to make a deal with me to freeze out you and Sykes." Sir Daubrey, "Understandable. Did you?" Singleton, "Well, I told him I'd like a little time to think it over. You see, I've had other offers." Daubrey, "Mousey?" Singleton, "Surprised?" Daubrey, "Not at all. I was about to make you an offer myself." Singleton, "I was rather hoping you would."

B-movie from the Paramount distributed low-budget studio Pine-Thomas, shot in a Florida which exoticism accounts for the Australian Territory of Papua and New Guinea, and written from Thomson Burtis's novel New Guinea Gold. The title Crosswinds comes from a romantic song composed for the movie by the duo Jay Livingston and Ray Evans (The Man who knew too much's Que Sera Sera), about some crosswinds which may contrary love.

In Papua, Katherine (Rhonda Fleming, Adventure Island, with her beautiful red hair in Technicolor) comes by plane with Nick (Robert Lowery, Jungle Flight), the associate of the crooked trafficker Jumbo (Forrest Tucker, Hurricane Smith), who wants to retrieve a gold treasure sunk with the seaplane of a mining company in a remote lake. In his lovely sailboat the Seeker, "his home, his job and his sweetheart", comes also the captain Steve (John Payne, Captain China from the same director), an adventurer who also seeks himself, with his Asian second Bumidai (Frank Kumagai, South Sea Woman), who acts as his comic foil.

By tricking Steve in a phony pearl search, pretext to some pretty submarine action views, Jumbo manages to steal his boat from him. Steve, meeting other dubious characters, Sir Cecil (Alan Mowbray, The Lady and the Bandit), a kind of "Milord l'Arsouille", and his assistant Mousey (John Abbott, Navy Bound), decides to venture up the Fly River into New Guinea depth until Lake Murray, in order to find Jumbo and his boat, as well as a disappeared Katherine. Will Steve manage to thwart the traps of the crooked people who surround him? Shall he be able to retrieve the lost Katherine and to get back his boat?

This adventure movie is obviously very far below the Hollywood classics like King Solomon's Mines or African Queen. As during the fifties no one left could believe in African savages, the less known New Guinea still allows to perform Tarzan-like scenes with yelling tribes and ominous tom-tom. And of course dangerous wild beasts play also their part, with snakes, crocodiles and even a black panther, very exotic indeed for a New Guinea east of Wallace Line. Nevertheless, if you choose to remain indulgent, you shall follow the small adventure until its end.