South of Suez (1940)

Best movie ever!

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Director: LEWIS SEILER. Screenplay: Barry Trivers. Uncredited additional dialogue: Michael Hogan. Original screen story: Sheridan Gibney. Photographed in block-and-white by Arthur Todd. Film editor: Clarence Kolster. Art director: Esdras Hartley. Costumes: Howard Shoup. Make-up: Perc Westmore. Music composed by Frederick Hollander, directed by Leo F. Forbstein. Special effects directed and photographed by Byron Haskin, with the photographic assistance of Edwin DuPar. Dialogue director: Robert Foulk. Technical adviser: Clifford Severn. Assistant director: William Kissell. Sound recording: Francis J. Scheid. RCA Sound System. Associate producer: William Jacobs. Executive producer: Bryan Foy. In charge of production: Jack L. Warner.Copyright 23 November 1940 by Warner Bros Pictures, Inc. A Warner Bros—First National picture. New York opening at the Palace on a double bill with Michael Shayne, Private Detective: 18 December 1940. Australian release: 27 March 1941. 7,856 feet. 87 minutes. SYNOPSIS: Wrongfully accused of murdering his partner, a mining engineer escapes to London, but then falls in love with the daughter of the man he is supposed to have killed. COMMENT: George Brent, head-over-heels involved in an incredibly juvenile Boys Own Paper adventure, comes across with only marginal conviction as the hero whom coincidence strikes not once or twice but six or seven times in the course of the screenplay's two acts. In Act One, George is dumb enough to run away when he could easily prove that Snedeker was the real murderer. But the script wants us to believe that George is too stupid to realize this fact. In Act Two, however, we are asked to credit that George has such a brilliant mind he has built up a considerable fortune by playing the stock market. Rags to riches may be a common phenomenon on Broadway, but it's not the sort of thing you can otherwise accomplish twice in a lifetime, let alone within five years! Oh, well, Brenda Marshall looks nice and we like Tobias (even though he overacts atrociously) in a rare dramatic role. The director adds fuel to Tobias's fire by employing some nice spooky close-ups too! Comedian Eric Blore tries his best to raise a few laughs from somewhat threadbare material. Lee Patrick comes off best as a bimbo with more fashion sense than common sense. Cecil Kellaway pours on the charm in a small part. Stephenson is likewise wasted in a fleeting role as an office-bound Scotland Yard man. The film has been produced on a comparatively lavish scale and the pace is certainly brisk. The trouble is that, as stated, even on its own juvenile level, the plot is sheer nonsense, and the characters behave so unbelievably they waste the talents of the players who enact them on the screen.

George Brent is "South of Suez" with Lee Patrick, George Tobias, and Miles Mander. Released in 1940, Brent plays John Gamble, who is the foreman of a diamond mine owner, Eli Snedeker (Tobias), in Africa. Gamble is soon an ex-foreman, as he doesn't like Snedeker's sleazy practices.Snedeker attempts to cheat Roger Smythe (Mander) out of his diamond claim, which thus far hasn't yielded anything. Gamble figures the claim must be worth something, so he rips up the papers before Smythe can sign them, angering Snedeker, and Gamble goes into partnership with Smythe. One diamond found on the property is a large, star-shaped diamond worth at least 50,000 pounds.With that and the other diamonds mined, Smythe has enough to leave Africa and join his daughter Katherine (Brenda Marshall) in Egypt. Before he can, Snedeker kills him, but can't find the diamond because Gamble has the diamonds to sell for both of them. Delia, Snedeker's wife, witnesses the murder, but when Gamble returns, angry that he's rejected her, she tells him she'll point the finger at him. Gamble takes off, makes it to London, changes his name to Bradley, and becomes very rich.He's never forgotten about Katherine, Smythe's daughter, and locates her. They fall in love, but he can't tell her his true identity, because she hates Gamble and is trying to find him to bring him to justice. One night, he sees an opportunity to get rid of John Gamble forever.This is a good story, and I have to say I didn't mind the acting as much as another reviewer on this site did. I'm used to George Brent, I guess, and I thought Eric Blore, as his friend Limey that he makes while he's a stowaway on a ship, was colorful enough to make up for any of Brent's shortcomings. As far as the vitriol against Brenda Marshall (Mrs. William Holden), I've always liked her.This is a melodramatic but entertaining movie containing a typical mistake, stated by a judge, that a wife can't testify against her husband. Sure she can. She just can't be forced to do so.The Hollywood sets suggest a foreign land, and as stated in another review, probably were left over from The Letter. It makes sense.Enjoyable.

GEORGE BRENT was never more stoic in giving a wooden performance than he is in this programmer in which he and BRENDA MARSHALL have almost no chemistry together. Marshall is a strictly by-the-numbers sort of actress with severe limitations and never made it to full-fledged stardom. See her in this one and you'll understand why.Surprisingly, the most vivid performance in the film is given by LEE PATRICK as the wife of greedy gold-miner owner (GEORGE TOBIAS) who sets Brent up for the murder of a fellow miner who discovered a diamond Tobias covets. Her courtroom scene toward the end gives her a chance to emote in Ida Lupino style. Only eight years later she would be one of the almost unrecognizable inmates of THE SNAKE PIT.All of the sets look like leftovers from THE LETTER which took place on a rubber plantation. Still, for all its faults, this little programmer delivers some interesting melodramatic moments.And a scene-stealing monkey supplies some much needed humorous moments.