To the Ends of the Earth (1948)

Truly Dreadful Film

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

needed special permission of production code to talk about drug smuggling made during Powell's 'tough guy' years opium trade set 1935"To The Ends Of The Earth" was a film made during the period after Dick Powell transitioned from the pretty-boy crooner in light-weight films to a more world-weary and middle aged leading man. I generally loved these films, as Powell's characters were often incredibly cynical...and he pulled it off very well. This one, while showing SOME of this new sort of Powell character, sadly, isn't up to the quality of his best performances of the era...though it is a decent time-passer.The film begins in the mid-1930s with an insanely graphic and troubling scene. Treasury Department Commissioner, Mike Barrows (Powell), is on a boat in the San Francisco area that is trailing a boat full of smugglers. In a sick and desperate act, the captain of the boat being pursued decides to have his men toss their illegal cargo overboard instead of being caught with it...and you see dozens of Chinese migrant workers chained together being tossed into the sea to their deaths! Barrows witnesses this and is horrified...and vows to see this captain apprehended. But they are now in international waters and the boat escapes.Later, there is a lead that the captain MIGHT be in China and so Barrows travels there to hunt for the scum-bag. However, it soon begins clear that these Chinese workers were not what he originally thought. They were, in fact, slave laborers used by folks in the narcotics trade to plant and harvest poppies and soon he finds himself investigating the heroin trade. While all this sounds very exciting, the film's pacing wasn't great and the story went to too many locations and had too many characters. Normally I don't see this as a problem but I found that the pacing and story were not especially well done. I think a lot of this was made more obvious because too often instead of DOING anything, the characters talked and talked and talked. Overall, not a bad film but one that was surprisingly flat at times.

***SPOILERS*** Very probably the very first serious movie coming out of Hollywood about illegal drugs and how their being being smuggled into the USA has Dick Powell as FBN, Federal Bureau of Narcotics, Agent Michael Borrows going as the movies title suggests to the ends of the earth to stop a boat load of opium from being smuggled into New York Harbor. It's Agent Borrows shock of seeing some 100 Chinese coolies thrown overboard off the Japanese freighter Kira Maru that sent him on his course of stopping the opium shipment that the ship was involved with from being successful even at the cost of his own life!Traveling to far off Shanghai then Cairo as well as the Middle East, Palestine Lebanon and Syria, Agent Barrow finally got some results in pre-Castro Havana Cuba where the shipment of illegal Opium was on it's last leg on its voyage to New York City. While tracking the drugs down Agent Borrows got involved with Ann Grant, Signe Hasso, and her ward of the state pretty Chinese teenager Sho Pan Wu, Maylia, who's parents were killed in China in a Japanese bombing raid on their village. It's Ann that Agent Borrows is a bit suspicious of in that she's not straight with him about what she's doing Shanghai China and the mysterious circumstances of her husbands, an irrigation engineer, death!It later comes out that Mr.Grant was involved in the planting and hiding, under a bed of roses, a field of poppies, the plant that Opium comes from, in Southern Egypt! This is later confirmed by the Egyptian owner of the "rose garden" Binda Sha, Fritz Libner, who when exposed killed himself by jumping off a cliff! The movie finally gets to the point to how the Opium was processed and hidden in the ships, docked in Havana Harbor, kitchen that's to be secretly smuggled into New York City under the cover of darkness or for a better word garbage!***SPOILERS*** It's by then that Agent Borrows gets a bead to who's the big boss of the drug smuggling operation. Not really knowing that Agent Borrors is on to him or her the drug kingpin drops his guard which gives Borrows the chance to get the jump on him and his drug smuggling, who by then were almost all dead or behind bars, colleagues! The final few tense filled minutes of the movie has Agent Borrows take a chance in letting the head of the drug smuggling operation take a shot on him just to prove that he's the one in charge! It took nerves of steel on Agent Borrows part but it worked to the shock, in finding out who the head man was, of everybody watching as well as in the cast the movie!P.S There's also in "To The Ends of the Earth" in a number of newsreel clips the head of the FBN Harry J. Anslinger who together with the assistance of his crime fighting government agency made the making of the movie possible.

Fast-paced, tautly told tale of international opium smuggling in the pre-WWII period. Despite the docu-drama format (from the files of the US Treasury Dep't, etc.), police procedure manages not to get in the way. And a crackling good story it is, with a sneaky twist ending. Anti-Drug agent Barrows (Powell) has got to unravel an elaborate drug operation that takes him around the globe. On the way, he encounters all sorts of suspicious characters and risky situations. The studio (Columbia) does a good job mimicking exotic locales to create an appropriate atmosphere for the dedicated Barrows.So, who's the man behind the illegal operation? Well, for one thing, we know he's an agent of imperial Japan (circa,1935) since their army seeks to pacify a conquered Manchuria with loads of the deadening drug—(note: I wish the prologue stated whether this wicked scheme is actual historical fact or not). Anyhow, the premise provides employment opportunity for a host of Hollywood's shady characters, including Hoyt, Hasso, and two favorite Nazis, Triesault and Donath. So there's intrigue a-plenty.However, I'm not sure I buy the last leg of the smuggling operation since it seems so risky, depending as it does on exact timing in a big ocean. Nonetheless, the various ruses are cleverly conceived, although at times the various in's and out's may be a little hard to follow. And you may need a scorecard to keep up with the shifting cast of characters. But that early scene of jettisoning illegal cargo is one-of-a-kind and about as cold-blooded as any film of that era.(In passing-- a recurring theme is international cooperation in behalf of mankind, while the final shot is an optimistic one of the United Nations building. A year later, and I suspect the menace would have shifted to the Soviets with a much darker outlook.) Still and all, this is one of the best docu-dramas from a time when Hollywood appeared to be doing gratis pr work for the feds.

In some ways, it is very much ahead of its time. In the first few minutes, you'll know you are watching a very well done movie. The scene where the slaves go overboard and it motivates Dick Powell to track down the murderer is enough to get you interested. Every time, Powell gets nearer something happens to sidetrack him. The predications about drugs and South America are extraordinary, given that over 50 years has elapsed. The way of smuggling the drugs is very clever. I recommend this movie because of its suspense and its ability to draw you into it.