China Girl (1942)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

One of my all time favorites.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

As in most films produced during the war years, at least those that focused on Asian locales, China Girl probably had two important functions when it was made. The first, of course, was to entertain audiences with action and romance, to be profitable, the second was to serve the US war effort though, sadly, there was never much of a US effort made to actually help China until late in the war. In this film George Montgomery--described by some critics as the actor chosen after Montgomery Cliff or Tyrone Power refused the role-- plays a rakish hustler out to profit from the chaos of war. After escaping Japanese controlled China, he lands in Burma where he meets his China Girl, played by Gene Tierney who looks not a bit like a Chinese woman. While there is some attempt to inject other elements to the plot, Japanese agents and even a "love triangle", these seem superficially installed for their melodrama and don't do much to draw the viewer into the story. A major part of the plot is that true love can absolve moral failings. How sweet! There are logistical and factual problems with the story-line: the hero says he has just fled a Japanese military base in Luchow, located in Sichuan, where the Japanese army never advanced to; a World War I vintage biplane carries its passengers several hundred miles over mountainous terrain, surely well beyond such a plane's range; a dispute over destinations has the hero arguing that they will go to Kunming, not Yunnan (Kunming is in the center of Yunnan); the hero and his gal take an evening stroll to the Dhammayan Temple vicinity, about a hundred miles from Mandalay, where they are supposed to be. But one would not expect Hollywood scriptwriters to be familiar with Asian geography,and viewers of that era even less so.All in all, a mediocre effort to depict a trans-continental romance set against the background of horrendous human tragedy in WW II China. There were some good films made during this period, but this is not one of them.

One reviewer mentions the lack of trash talk and beastly violence. I guess that's true if you don't mind what the Japanese are called and Chinese bodies tossed into a trench as our hero escapes imprisonment. Or the bombing of the very authentic-looking school and village including the terror and apparent death of trusting little kids who weren't evacuated to a safer place very much like in the 1937 movie The Hurricane. I found those things realistic and repulsive.Why Montgomery had to do a Clark Gable impression is beyond me and it makes his acting hard to endure. I gather from movie dramas that China was full of Americans and Brits as missionaries and business people when the Japanese invaded. Apparently you could hardly swing a cat without hitting one or two. :) I found Tierney's character uninteresting compared to Bari's and I was unmoved by what happened to her at the end, with the obligatory "inspirational" speech complete with heavenly rays of light. I could see why the rough and ready but perennially well-shaved and clothed photographer from Akron would be fascinated by a beautiful and aloof Vassar girl who was half Chinese instead of all the "dames" who were throwing themselves at him, but I wasn't. She seemed a false note in the village scenes and she never made me care about her. Actually, I just cared about the Chinese in the village because we know what they would have to endure in the years to come if they survived to maturity.There are lots of good lines and moments which make this watchable. It's interesting to me to see the changing view of the war in movies as the situation on the ground changed. In the late 30s movies indicated that this war was just a reprise of the last one, with greedy and powerful men manipulating behind the scenes and international alliances bringing the situation to a head although there was no consensus on which countries would be fighting which, even France vs Britain was considered plausible! Then it was a British war with peripheral Americans. And then it was an American war with us in the thick of things against obvious villains and no reference to the time when it was seen as just another European land grab and whatever happened in China etc was very remote indeed.

During the early days after America's entry into WWII, Hollywood cranked up the pro-war propaganda machine to both explain and justify our late participation and urgent need to catch up in the global battle against fascism. This pre-Pearl Harbor story concerns one he-man opportunist's efforts to juggle the bad guys and bad (?) girls with questionable motives. At times it looks like a film noir and other times a spy romance/melodrama, but with cynical dialogue by the master Ben Hecht and tough-guy direction by Henry Hathaway, this chop suey has enough meat and potatoes to satisfy. Example of the catchy language: George Montgomery says to sexy Lynn Bari, "I like you because you're everything a girl should be, 115 pounds of lies, venom and kisses." Another line has spy Victor McLaglen reporting the only Japanese he could translate from a secret document was the number 7 and the word Pearl!!! Oh - and the reason most folks will be watching - the China Girl, Gene Tierney is scrumptious!

Elaborate WW2 adventure follows a newsreel photographer's intrigues and romance in China and Burma. Although Ben Hecht's screenplay is lively with macho action and jingo dialogue, the women stand out: Gene Tierney looks ravishing , while Lynn Bari steals all her scenes by underplaying with a haunting edge. Much less successful is hero George Montgomery who apparently took Clark Gable lessons, projecting all the brashness but none of the humor. Victor McLaglen gives stolid support and Robert Blake is fine as an Indian child. The real attraction here is the production: exquisite Oriental decor, imaginative lighting, and some spectacular mayhem.