The Port of Missing Girls

A girl escapes aboard ship to Hong Kong, while the San Francisco police look for her on a wrongful murder charge.

The most interesting part of this Monogram cheapo is whether Della (Allen) is being delivered into a Hong Kong bordello or a sorority school for girls. Note how the script plays around with the nature of Minnie's (Jones) establishment— for example, there's the girls just lounging around in dressing gowns, including the tough talking Chicago (Compson) and the blonde girl (Katrina) of unknown extraction, all presided over by a rotund war horse of a woman. Looks to me like a place where a sailor could go for a good time, no matter what they say. Of course, this is several years after the restrictive Production Code, so the script has to play cute.

One thing for sure—the cast principals are a lot better than the material. Carey and Stone are excellent. But to me,the girls in particular shine. I especially like the weight-challenged Jones who looks like a haystack but sings like a canary. Maybe you can figure out what the Chinese guy (Vincenot) is up to. I couldn't, but who cares. That shoot-out aboard ship is one of the worst I've seen—guys firing straight into one another, yet nobody gets hit. Maybe they were firing blanks. Add the cheap sets and some bad acting from Vincenot and Fain, and you've got a typically tacky Monogram product.

Like H. B. Warner in "City of Missing Girls," (no plot relationship), the actor who carries this modest B-movie is an older man best known to modern viewers for his late-life supporting roles -- and part of the surprising charm of this flick is to see what a good actor the gentleman really was, when given a starring role. Harry Carey is absolutely wonderful as a sea captain with a tragic past who tries to help others find the happiness that has eluded him -- and in the end the viewer cares more about him than about the star-crossed young couple whose ups and downs we are supposed to be emoting over. "Port of Missing Girls" features a great little "exotic" nightclub scene, a credible false-accusation-of-murder plot, and some excellent low-budget art deco sets and costumes, but what really makes it shine is Harry Carey, a man who projects genuine warmth, secret sorrow, and manly toughness with an unaffected simplicity that i cannot compare to that of any other actor of his time period or the present era.

I have loved Harry Carey's stoic but comforting presence in B-westerns for decades, and he projects a similar kind of reassuring countenance in "Missing Girls." I came to view this film because of Mr. Carey being in it, as well as Milburn "Doc Adams" Stone being in it. Mr. Carey indeed is the clear center-piece of this film, but the whole cast seemed to enjoy being in the program. Sure, some of the cast may not be fully polished actors, but this film is perhaps one of the more enjoyable B-contemporary society pictures I have seen, and I've seen plenty. It has a diverse set of characters portrayed in a story that is involving and makes it easy to root for, and stick around for, a happy conclusion. The somewhat implausible wrap-up is efficient and fast-paced. If one is hankering to see a low-budget, late 1930s picture set on board an old cargo ship with a stop along the way in a mysterious far-east locale, then this one is a good one.

My goodness, the songs are terrible in this film. And they keep on coming. Aaargh! One of them, sung by Jane Jones (Minnie), a large madam heading up a brothel repeats that she is going to "change my routine". For goodness sake, just do it, and stop singing. Our heroine, Judith Allen (Della) is equally guilty of delivering poor entertainment in the form of countless boring songs. She has been transported to an island after being falsely accused of murder and put under the charge of Jones. She has landed in the port of missing girls where every girl has a story and a past she is running from. Unfortunately, we don't learn of anyone's past stories. One day, Judith's identity is discovered...

The only good acting in this film comes from the ship's captain Harry Carey (Storm) and seasoned prostitute Betty Compson (Chicago). Judith Allen is terrible in the lead role - crying, screaming, running about, singing another song (Aaargh!) - and her lead man is uninspiring. There is a story to be followed but the film just gets a bit boring. And that gun battle on the ship - ha ha. You will never see so many people shooting at pretty close range and NO-ONE getting hit. The chances of the good guys winning this battle are zero but guess what? What a load of nonsense. It is also a shame to see the black stereotype that is Fred Toones.

Judith Allen has just ordered a cop out of her changing room when Matty Fain jumps out of a closet, points a gun at her and has her get her boss, Eddie Kane, there. When Kane shows up, Fain shoots him for squealing and kidnaps Allen. He's about to dispose of her when his driver orders him off. He dumps her with a warning. Pursued by the cops, she stows away on woman-hating Harry Carey's ship, bound for Shanghai.

It's a code-compliant bad-girl-in-the-South-Seas affair, reminiscent of movies like SEVEN SINNERS, and is an entertaining flick. While radioman Milburn Stone romances her, Carey drops her off at Jane Jones' bar, where they put on a show for slumming tourists to give them a thrill. Betty Compson has a funny turn as 'Chicago', wanted for something never specified. Miss Allen sings a couple of songs and Miss Jones sings a Sophie-Tucker style number. Meanwhile, Carey, who gives a light-hearted performance, gets involved with gun runners. Despite a weak set-up to the movie, the balance of the show combines melodrama and comedy expertly, with 'Snowflake' Toones helping to turn the tide in the big gun fight by clanging the chief badman's head with a noisy frying pan.

Writer-Director Karl Brown had entered the movies in the photo labs of Kinemacolour. Later, he became a cameraman for D.W. Griffith, then entered the ranks of auteurs with the well-received (and recently restored) STARK LOVE. His subsequent career never advanced out of the B ranks, but he wrote a nice reminiscence of his early days, ADVENTURES WITH D.W. GRIFFITH.