Bombay Clipper

Typical product of Universal studios from this decade, 40's. It could have been made by George Waggner, Lew Landers or Christy Cabanne. This kind of flicks never ran beyond one hour. No boredom in them. Talkatives, action packed in the same time. Mixture of comedy, romance, crime, a little drama and adventure.

This story of a near married detective who has to protect diamonds is rather stereotype, nothing special. Except the climax, at the end, aboard the plane. But it's not AIR FORCE ONE !! I comment it before forgetting...But the purpose in seeing this kind of product is fighting boredom, and replunge into 40's atmosphere. The characters are not deeply described, of course. And it's always a pleasure to see Maria Montez. She has not the lead, but who cares?

It's possible that I've been looking at so many poor movies over the last couple of days that anything decent looks great, but this is a terrific little B movie. William Gargan and Irene Hervey are freshly married and on the air flight from Bombay to Manila. Miss Hervey is upset with her groom because he's promised to give up being a roving reporter and get a desk job immediately; here he is working a story about a million dollars of diamonds that a maharajah is shipping to the US. She doesn't know he's doing it for his old boss in return for that promised desk job. The diamonds are on board, but so are a bunch of odd characters. When the diamonds turn up in Miss Hervey's luggage, and there's a corpse on board, things get considerably more interesting.

There are some unexpected twists, a lot of good humor, and an exciting and redemptive ending. Along the way there are some very good roles for Lloyd Corrigan, Turhan Bey, and even Mary Gordon, sporting as broad a Scots accent as she ever did. It's quite obviously a B movie from Universal shot on a total of three sets and one on the studio lot, but Universal knew how to stretch a dollar, and the script by Roy Chanslor, and Stanley Rubin plays to the cast's strengths. Director John Rawlins was never nominated for an Oscar, but he knew how to take a fanciful situation and get some chuckles and suspense out of it.

Foreign correspondent Jim Wilson is trying to get a big break on a story while at the same time trying to please his fiancé Frankie by settling down. Jim gets a break on a case where diamonds will be transported on the Bombay Clipper plane where they will be eventually cut for the war effort which will also bring out spies trying to abduct the gems. When one thief is killed on board it seems like much of the threat is over, but he was only small fry and the head of the smugglers still plans to get the gems, which were given to Frankie.

Decent and pedestrian affair only hampered by the fact that the United States wasn't at war when the picture was filmed and we don't have the actual Nazi or Japanese factions named in the film to root against. Nice dialogue between Gargan & Hervey as well as a very good closing scene with the two. Mary Gordon has probably her best non-Mrs. Watson role in the film in a fun gambling scene. Much of the revelation at the end of the film seems trite & rushed and probably could have used some script doctoring.

Rating, 5 out of 10

I was expecting another B potboiler from Universal but I was pleasantly surprised. I always appreciate being pleasantly surprised. This picture has a lot of plot and a script that was well thought out. The website says it was an original screenplay and it makes you wonder what a bigger studio could have done with this one.

William Gargan is a reporter in the far east who is always on the lookout for a hot scoop. Irene Hervey is his fiancé who keeps getting left at the altar. He hears about a jewelry shipment and feels it would be an important story. So do the 'bad guys'. The hook to this story is that you can never tell which are the 'good guys' and which are the 'bad guys'. Much of the story takes place on an airliner carrying the shipment of jewels. It is an absorbing and an interesting movie which ought to be seen by more people than apparently have seen it.

Two thoughts; Irene Hervey is gorgeous - wonder why she didn't have a bigger career. She was married to Allan Jones, who had the right idea. Second, this could have been a more 'important' movie if more money were spent on the production. Some of the sets seem as if they could have fallen over and necessitated retakes of some scenes.

I saw it at Cinevent, Columbus, O., 5/12, but I don't know how you can see it, since it's not available in any format. Maybe it will show up on TCM.