Uma Aventura Perigosa

John Wayne (in ties and jackets!) ferrets out Commies in post-WWII Hawaii along with strapping partner James Arness. For a movie so obviously filled with swaggering machismo, the overall results of "Big Jim McLain" are fairly tame, with just a scene or two of fisticuffs outnumbered by the romantic clinches between the Duke and Nancy Olson (who moves quickly). Archie Stout's black-and-white cinematography isn't expressive (the budget here doesn't seem large enough for expressive), and yet his silvery shots of the tropics in all their '50s splendor are memorable. As for Wayne, he walks through the whole thing rather sheepishly; Jim McLain isn't much of a character, and Wayne doesn't look like he's anxious to find one in the writing. The flag-waving, Purple Heart-patriotic drama at hand is tidied up very quickly, and yet the film is directed with an easy-going pace by Edward Ludwig. The title was changed for release around the globe (most often due to redubbing to remove the Communist plotting): in Germany and Austria, it was called "Marihuana"; in Mexico and Chile, it was "Intrigue in Honolulu". ** from ****

An American political thriller; A story about two federal agents who are assigned the task of breaking up a ring of Communist Party troublemakers in Hawaii. This film has a propaganda tone, dealing with subject matter such as House Un-American Activities Committee investigations (the HUAC was created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty and subversive activities on the part of private citizens, public employees, and those organisations suspected of having Communist ties), a major news item in late 1940s America. The script portrayed communists as inadequate, pseudo-intellectuals, error-prone gangsters, and agents of the Kremlin, and it declared that incidents in the film were based on the files of the HUAC Committee, without questioning the power that was used to jail people for contempt of court or its damaging effects on the careers of many artists it summoned. This melodramatic movie uses comic relief as well as mystery and a love story set against a travelogue of locations in Hawaii. Its subject matter was timely but crude, failing to be even-handed in its telling of a fictionalised spy story. Its depictions of anti-communists blurred the line of intent between serious documentary-drama and arousing and entertainment fact-based fiction. John Wayne gave his character potency, but his snarling attitude seemed misplaced, and some of the other characters introduced muddled the story. The story was about the American government rooting out communist influence in the United States post-war, but it was an inaccurate portrayal of that time and was playing to the hysteria of the time in attempting to educate the public.

Early in the film Wayne and Arness take the US Navy "picket boat" out to Battleship Row and the superstructure of the USS Arizona, long before the familiar white memorial was built. This little side trip provides a continuity. The 50's fear of Communism was seen, in that era, as being informed by the experience of the attack at Pearl Harbor 11 years before. Folks then knew from bitter, bloody experience, that evil in the world existed, and they were trying to thwart the new evil. It may appear ham-handed to us today, but, in the context of the times, finding the enemy through investigative techniques probably appeared preferable to another sneak attack. Having read the above comments, I also appreciate the way the writers heaped praise on the local, Hawaiian, police.

While Big Jim McLain will hardly rank with the greatest of John Wayne's films, it expresses the conflict between loyal American citizens and law enforcement officials and the threat posed by Soviet agents. Only since the release of some of the USSR archives can we see how real the threat was although rarely as simplistic as the film shows it. Big Jim McLain needs to be viewed in the context of its times just as other US wartime action films reflect the tenor of our role in World War II and how people saw the enemy of that day.

An HUAC (House UnAmerican Activities Committee) propaganda film at its worst. How John Wayne could persist in claiming that the HUAC was good for the country is beyond my comprehension. It is even worse that he stated publicly that he was "delighted" that this film probably brought on the scandalous McCarthy hearings of the 1950s which, in many cases, ruined the careers of many leading Hollywood personalities of the period.