The Port of Missing Girls

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.

I became a Harry Carey fan because of this movie, having not really noticed him before. I think he was great in his simplicity, and since my first viewing of this on SPN (one of the original satellite stations)I have always paid attention to movies he was in.

I wish there were a way to give a movie like this a distinctive score, say a 5.3; something to denote perfection in its unique way, yet let the reader know that it's no Titanic. The scenery is cheap, save for maybe the opening number, which has Della singing in a nightclub. Milburn Stone is B all the way.

It takes you on a foggy boat ride to ports unknown and back, with a seedy nightclub along the way.

This movie has its intended comic moments, and some moments which are made comic over the passage of time.

I happen to like this kind of film, and go out of my way to pick up copies of everyone (like this) of interest. Most of these movies were made in a day (long gone) of Deco Nightclubs, Offices, and Hotels. It's a style long gone, and when someone in the modern era uses Deco it really stands out, like Jack Palance's office in Batman. In movies like the one I am reviewing, Deco was the order of the day. Even the cheapest movies had that wonderful style.

This movie is available on DVD from Amazon; copy is not that great, but that sort of adds to it. For seven bucks, pick it up and......

Sit back, sip some coffee and forget about CGI.

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.

When the story begins, Della Mason (Judith Allen) is abducted by some creep and as he drags her along, he stops to shoot someone. Sadly, while she was a victim, folks now think she was involved in the murder and so she runs and stows away aboard a ship. The Captain (Harry Carey) at first wants to turn her in to the authorities but he oddly changes her mind and helps her. He diverts the ship to an island filled with folk running from the law. But is she then destined to spend the rest of her life on the run?!

While it's never explicitely said, the place Della stays at appeared to be a brothel. The Madame in charge, by the way, was a terrible actress and could barely deliver her lines....but aside from her, the rest were competent and the film mildly enjoyable. A middle of the road B-adventure movie...one that is best when you are feeling blah and just want a time passer and nothing more.

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.