Passage from Hong Kong

Directed by Ross Lederman, who worked for Warner and Columbia pictures, this little film provides us good entertainment. A mix up of comedy, espionage and romance movie. Nothing exceptional here, the exotic atmosphere is of course not been made in natural setting but in Warner studios.

This is a rather rare film, aired on late TNT and never been shown since, at least as far as I know.

I have not really much to say about it. It is not especially my cup of tea. But I took it because of the opportunity to purchase such a rare item. During WW2, you found many of those features, with fifth column agents and other foreign evil characters, essentially German or Japanese.

Not every B-movie was made by a small-time studio. Big studios like Warner Brothers, Fox and MGM also made Bs. In general, the big studio Bs looked a bit better....but "Passage from Hong Kong" is proof that in spite of this, these movies could be poor.

An obnoxious American, Jeff Hunter, is in Asia and the war is soon coming...so much so that foreigners are trying to get out of Hong Kong as soon as possible. During this time, a murder occurs and all sorts of rogues keep trying to get Jeff to change his testimony about what he heard. Why? He has no idea. What's REALLY going on here and why are the cops trying so hard to close this case quickly?

Nearly every time Jeff comes on the screen, we hear strains of "Yankee Doodle"...just to remind us again and again and again he's an American! This is pretty shabby. The script itself is also rather poor...and often doesn't make a ton of sense. Overall, a tough to love B...one which proves even Warner Brothers could make a B every bit as bad at small outfits like PRC and Monogram. My score of 3 might just be a bit generous!

I have cultivated a few hundred of the worst films of all time with a special list called the Turkey Farm. Congratulations to this film for making the cut over thousands of other candidates. How does a film qualify for the Turkey Farm? It must be trite, poorly directed and acted, and most of all, have a moronic script. This film hit all four targets with ease. The leading actor does a bad imitation of Fred MacMurray (who is a fine actor). And the leading actress does almost no acting at all. The rest of the cast goes through the motions of acting, but they are just being cartoonish, as the writing calls for them to be cartoonish. All of the Asians in the film are stereotypes, as is anyone else with an income below the upper class. Hellzapoppin had a more cogent storyline than this turkey. Please do not waste your time on this silly B movie that was made in two weeks or less.

Just before the Japanese invasion, the American consulate in Hong Kong informs all Americans that the situation is grave and they should arrange passage immediately. This, of course, means there is none, as Lucile Fairbanks and her aunt, Marjorie Gateson, discover. There's also Douglas Kennedy, who has been following them around, trying to gain an invitation. Eventually she says she'll consider talking to him if he writes her a letter every day for five days, and they're interesting. Soon Kennedy writes her he is involved in a murder, people who don't exist, a fabulous knife, and two mysterious strangers who want him to change the time he heard the gun that killed the murdered man go off, so they could claim they killed him; they have alibis for the actual time of murder.

This movie not only descends into a a crazy mess, its placing the time right before the Japanese took Hong Kong, which seems to have been a leisurely affair according to this movie, renders it even more bizarre. It seems to have vanished into the underground, despite being a Warner Brothers movie. I suspect that is because the only memorable name in the cast or crew is Earl Derr Biggers, one of whose stories, "The Second Floor Mystery", provided the basis for this movie. Like many of Warner Brothers' B omedies in this period, it substitute a frantic pace for funny jokes. Even so, its short length renders it watchable.