Typhoons and Pirates

It's always fun to run across a 1930s-era movie that I had never seen before.

China Seas, produced by MGM in 1935, stars Clark Gable as the perpetually ill-tempered captain of a tramp steamer that is making a trip from Singapore to Hong Kong. Aside from his passengers, he's also secretly transported £250,000 pounds in gold, hidden somewhere aboard the ship.

Captain Gaskell is supposedly the only person who knows about it, but one of the passengers--Jamesy McArdle (Wallace Beery) also knows about it. And McArdle is working with a gang of cutthroat Malay pirates. Even when Gaskell spots some pirates trying to sneak aboard disguised as women, McArdle improvises a back-up plan and is still determined to get the gold.

The gold isn't the only complication in Gaskell's life. A new officer named Davis (Lewis Stone) is a former captain who now lives with the shame of surviving after all his passengers and crew were wiped out by pirates. On a more personal level, Gaskell... well, he's played by Clark Gable, so he has not one--but TWO beautiful women aboard who are in love with him.  One is an aristocrat played by Rosalind Russel. The other is a more earthy gal played by Jean Harlowe.

The word play is between Gaskell and Dolly (Harlowe's character) is sharp and funny, while Gaskell's messy relationship situation is tied nicely into the main plot as Dolly, rejected by Gaskell, takes up with McArdle. When she accidentally learns of McArdle's piratical plans, she tries to warn Gaskell, but he's a little tipsy at the time (to be fair, he was off-duty) and refuses to take her seriously. Bitter, Dolly throws in with McArdle.

The action sequences in the film--dealing with a dangerous typhoon and the climatic clash with the pirates--are excellent and the characters are all sharply drawn, with each playing a part in the action that makes story sense and fits their personalities. This includes a strong character arc for the cowardly Davis, who gets a chance to redeem himself on a rather epic level. McArdle's eventual fate is handled superbly, both in terms of story and with Wallace Beery's strong performance.

I should also mention Robert Benchley's hilarious performance as a perpetually drunk passenger throughout the film. In fact, I believe he finishes the movie without ever realizing the ship had been briefly taken over by pirates.

One of my favorite aspects of the film is how it ends. I don't want to give away too much, but it represents essentially good characters who have messed up, but are willing to take complete responsibilites for their actions. Once again, it fits the personalities of the characters and also gives the movie an effective moral backbone.

By the way, Wallace Beery and Lewis Stone had starred together in the original version of The Lost World a decade earlier. Interestingly, Malay pirates turn out to be more of a danger to them than were the dinosaurs.