This is a pretty good example of a type of film genre in vogue in the 1920s and 1930s. The dissipation of white men in the tropics, and of their redemption when a well-born white woman enters the scene. There are dozens of films in this category, and though they are now dated period pieces, they are always fascinating as a glimpse of the West's attitudes towards what would later be called "The Third World." They often exhibit views that make us cringe today, and for the most part they unquestioningly support the colonial attitudes of the time. They should probably be approached as historical artifacts, and their offenses taken in the context of those long-ago times. They are very revealing, in a number of ways.
They often take place in small river-front towns, with tramp steamers and riverboats, seedy hotels and bars, and lots of human driftwood. There is often a local power figure, often a corrupt and greedy character, who runs the town like a personal fiefdom, meting out instant justice for anyone who crosses his path. Alan Dinehart plays that part here, and gives a convincing performance as the ruthless boss. This was a part he often played in films, and he was always good at it. The broken-down hero, a guy who has run away from something, and who is drowning his sorrows in the tropics, is the other main character of these films. He is played here by Donald Cook, a fairly popular leading man of the time. Cook played James Cagney's straight-arrow brother in "The Public Enemy." He seemed to specialize in such honorable men, or variations of them, such as the good man who has to struggle to keep his integrity. He plays that part here, and in another steamy-tropics film, William Wellman's incredibly racy "Safe in Hell," in 1931 (that film is probably the ultimate in these sex-in-the-jungle films. And one of the wildest-ever Pre-Code films).
Most of these films also have a 'Never the Twain shall Meet' story-line, and the hero often has a local girlfriend who isn't quite acceptable to polite society back home- for class and/or racial reasons. This element of these films is often disturbing, and again, one has to keep in mind when these films were made. Sometimes the hero's local lady is a Caucasian woman (see Jean Harlow in "Red Dust), but often she is of mixed race, or of the local ethnicity. There was obviously a lot of prejudice in the world when these films were made, and this extended to people of mixed race, who were caught between different worlds. Women of mixed- parentage were often portrayed as being sexually immoral, and the men as being untrustworthy and dangerous. The bad guy's girlfriend here was portrayed by Toshia Mori, a beautiful Japanese-American actress (and I think the only Asian Wampas Baby star- a group of pretty Hollywood actresses who showed future promise. I believe Ginger Rogers was in that group at one time). She is a good-time girl, and shows a streak of cruelty (especially at the end of the film- something to do with crocodiles) that people of the time may have ascribed to such women. I have seen her in a couple of other films, like "The Bitter Tea of General Yen," and she plays similar parts. I imagine she faced the same problems that Anna May Wong did- that producers only saw her as an exotic Asian, and only gave her such parts. She seemed to be a good actress.
Dudley Digges plays a drunken doctor, another staple of these films. They often have doctors who lost their practices due to negligence, or who are hiding from something, and drowning themselves in drink. I think Digges played similar roles in "The Emperor Jones" and "Mutiny on the Bounty." They often sacrifice themselves for the hero, in some way.
This film was directed by one of my favorite "B" film directors- Roy William Neill. He is most famous for making many of the Basil Rathbone- Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes films, as well as "Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman," and Karloff's "The Black Room." But he also made a whole string of interesting films in the '20s and '30s, many of them for Columbia. A pretty good one is a 1934 movie with Jack Holt and Fay Wray, called "Black Moon." It is an early voodoo film, and in some ways anticipates the great Val Lewton film, "I Walked With a Zombie." Another is the 1935 "Eight Bells," with Ralph Bellamy and Ann Sothern, about a shipboard mutiny. And a 1928 film, "The Viking," for MGM, about Leif Ericsson. It is one of the best examples of two-color Technicolor, and is very exciting. "The Black Room" is an excellent horror film, and very stylishly directed. It has one of Karloff's best '30s performances. I have always loved "Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman." It isn't of the caliber of the great 1930s Frankenstein films, but it is still very atmospheric, and has a lot of great performances. The Rathbone-Holmes films are justifiably famous, and lots of fun, too. One of Neill's last films, "The Black Angel," is a pretty good Film Noir, with Dan Duryea and Peter Lorre. Not a bad group of films. Neill's career probably needs re-evaluation.
Horace McCoy later wrote "Gentleman Jim" and "They Shoot Horses Don't They?"
This film is a hard one to get hold of, but it is worth watching, for any number of reasons. It is very entertaining, and is interesting for historical reasons as well. Others of this type would include: "My Sin," with Fredric March and Tallulah Bankhead; "Susan Lenox," with Garbo and Clark Gable; the aforementioned "Safe in Hell," and "Red Dust," with Gable and Harlow; "White Woman," with Carole Lombard; "Mandalay," with Kay Francis; "Lady of the Tropics," with Robert Taylor and Hedy Lamarr; "White Cargo," with Lamarr and Walter Pidgeon; and "Return to Paradise," with Gary Cooper.
