Malesia

Malaya may seem a fantastic tale, but the story actually has quite a bit of truth to it. When World War II broke out the Japanese quickly conquered most of the rubber producing areas of the world. The modern mechanized army does run on rubber and both the USA and Germany developed types of synthetic rubber to be used.

My mother told me during World War II there were all kinds of drives for recyclable material and among the most valuable was rubber. People contributed all kinds of old tires for the war effort.

Lionel Barrymore plays the real life Manchester Boddy who was publisher of the Los Angeles Daily News who was the prime mover in the scheme you see portrayed here in Malaya. Though this story is fictional, the need for rubber in the USA was critical at the time and there was in fact a rubber smuggling operation going on.

Spencer Tracy before he came to MGM played just the kind of two fisted action heroes at Fox which was his original studio. He expressed an interest in doing this kind of film for old time sake and got cast in it. He really isn't poaching on Humphrey Bogart's territory these were the kind of roles he originally did in film while Bogey was playing hoods over at Warner Brothers.

Because the script called for a buddy team of heroes, James Stewart was approached and he even conceded top billing to Tracy. According to the Films of James Stewart, he admired Tracy as an actor so much that he was grateful just for the opportunity to work with him again. In fact Stewart's first film role was in Murder Man, a film that starred Spencer Tracy back in 1935.

With the two of these big stars in the leads, MGM was able to recruit a really outstanding group of players like John Hodiak, Valentina Cortese, Roland Winters, Richard Loo, the aforementioned Lionel Barrymore and my two favorites Gilbert Roland and Sydney Greenstreet.

Roland was shortchanged though. Watching Malaya I could tell his role as Tracy's adventurous friend was left on the cutting room floor. But even a little Gilbert Roland is always a pleasure to watch.

This was Sydney Greenstreet's last film and in it he essentially reprises the part of Ferrari in Casablanca. He's got the best lines in the film and his scenes with his cockatoo are classic. As he says, he's just a saloon keeper with an access to gossip. Which gets put to very good use.

Stewart the idealist, Tracy the cynical realist. Too bad they didn't work together more.

If this movie did not have Jimmy Stewart and Spencer Tracy, the film wouldn't have even merited a score of five. It was a very uninspiring and forgettable wartime film made several years after the war actually ended. It just seemed like all the energy was missing from the film. In fact, about the only energy came from Sidney Greenstreet's pet bird--now that bird can act! Another problem with the film is the idea of casting Spencer Tracy in the role of a selfish, devil-may-care smuggler in Alcatraz at the beginning of the film. The believability of the performance didn't improve once he made it to Malaya. This is actually the sort of role I might have expected for Clark Gable or maybe even Errol Flynn (yes, I know he was with a different studio), but for Tracy, an actor who often was cast as the priest or nice guy, it just wasn't terribly convincing. Plus, he just acted too nice to be as seedy as they described him as being.

In the end, the only interesting thing about this film is how so much money was spent on the cast and so little bang was achieved for MGM's buck. This is purely a time-passer or film for those devotees of Stewart or Tracy.

I'm an American ex-pat living in Malaysia, so I thought I'd watch this to see if there were any old scenes of life in Malaysia in the late 40's. Well, as I expected, there weren't, BUT the actual movie and story were really well done and interesting.

I thought the dialog in this movie was the best I have heard from this era. I watch a lot of "noir", and this dialog was more realistic with a flair that wasn't overdone. For example, the interaction between Spencer Tracy and his girl wasn't flowery or sappy, it was kind of hip and snappy without being too "40's". Also, every line out of Greenstreet's mouth was sublime.

Casting was awesome! It seemed like everybody was perfect for their role. Greenstreet was fantastic as an almost omnipotent bar owner. Tracy was rough and rugged. Stewart was convincing as a sort-of-drifter that finally finds purpose in his life. Plus, you get a cameo of Lionel Barrymore, which is worth it's weight in gold.

This is a "feel good" movie about losers and dregs of society helping to win the war. It's tough, violent, and not everybody gets out alive. And, it's patriotic without being sappy. Watch this one on the Fourth of July, and you can't go wrong!

Malaya (1949)

It would be nice to love this movie—with a strong theme of wartime ingenuity and bravery, and with three stellar actors—but by the end I was thinking everyone involved was just going through the motions. That's probably enough in many ways with people this naturally gifted on screen, and the movie is enjoyable, no question. With all the borrowings or references to earlier classics (Sydney Greenstreet even has a big bird as a pet, as in "Casablanca"), it makes for a fun time.

The premise starts with some very compact storytelling—a somewhat disreputable man (James Stewart) is overheard saying he could smuggle rubber out of British Malaya (now Malaysia). It's WWII and the Army likes the idea enough to send him off with an ex-con (Spencer Tracy) who knows the area well. (This is all arranged with the help of Lionel Barrymore in a small role.)

Then the adventure begins as they penetrate with surprising ease the rubber plantations and arrange with the generally friendly locals and ex-pats to get their hidden stockpiles. The Japanese do eventually catch on and there is fun there, but not before a couple of torch songs and some humorous excess as usual from the likable Greenstreet.

Frankly, things never get exciting or even suspenseful, though interesting all along. One huge problem (for me) was a complete lack of details. The two men would say, okay, let's go get this rubber here, and they meet the plantation owner and there is some talk and then suddenly they are going down the river with some little barges. The Japanese have no suspicions, and the local smugglers are all these cheerful Resistance Fighter types who really like to help a lot.

It would be fun to know if a young viewer finds this exotic and fun or laughable. It's somewhere between in all. And what honestly holds it together for anyone who likes the actors is just watching familiar faces in new roles. That is one of the endless interests of the movies.

See it? Sure, if you already like older films or WWII films. It's not bad. The director Richard Thorpe is quite unknown these days, but the cinematographer is a standard bearer of he period, George Folsey, and that makes every scenes look terrific. Yeah, it's not at all bad. But it ain't great, either.

This is a good, not great, action-adventure picture based on the true account of how very necessary rubber was gotten out of Malaya, under the nose of the Japanese, for the Allied war effort in World War Two.

Spencer Tracy and James Stewart are teamed as a two-fisted con (sprung from Alcatraz for the job) and a hard-bitten reporter recruited by American intelligence (represented by John Hodiak).

There's some action, some atmosphere, some romance. It's not an exciting film, really, but the premise is unusual enough, and with some effort on my part, I stayed with it, and felt it had a decent payoff.

Like a lot of other MGM films of the time, the entire foreign locale was recreated on the back lot and the sound stages of the studio. You may recognize the river area and other locations from earlier films (Tarzan films, for example).

I'm not sure I bought Tracy as the tough nut, Carnahan. At least, not at his age. (He did sometimes play these kinds of roles much earlier in his career.) Here, I would rather have seen Clark Gable. The lines, the attitudes would have suited him better.

Jimmy Stewart doesn't really seem ideally cast, either. He's very good, but he's not exactly right.

Sydney Greenstreet, Valentina Cortesa, Gilbert Roland, Richard Loo and Lionel Barrymore round out the cast.

Though not a thrill a minute, Malaya is at least a fairly intelligent picture that tells a little known story of WWII heroism.