What do you get when you mix Gary Cooper, Madeleine Carroll, Akim Tamiroff, William Frawley and Philip Ahn in a story of a monkey-carrying courier delivering money to buy arms against an egomaniac general tring to take over China? A big bore, that's what.
I'd swear I didn't doze off, but if not there must be a reel missing because I never figured out what Frawley was supposed to be, though he had an important part in the climax.
The others are all favorite actors of mine, especially Carroll, the normally scenery-chewing Tamiroff (here so low-key he's practically catatonic) and the shamefully underutilized (by Hollywood) Ahn. And Cooper, usually only second to James Stewart as a bastion of rectitude. I wish Stewart made this dog. He might've found a way made the lead role interesting.
Director Lewis Milestone has a few nice moments I won't betray. But rather than looking for neat camera angles he ought to have tried injecting some life into the proceedings.
It's not the movie's age. I enjoy movies from this period, whether comedies, dramas, swashbucklers or musicals. Despite a tense story on paper there's a howling lack of suspense. The scriptwriters, fine actors and director simply haven't got there.
The flick is set in a period of warlords ruling China after the collapse of the last Dynasty. I'd like to see them make a similar feature on Chairman Mao, a genuinely dangerous imperial warlord if ever there was one.
I'd swear I didn't doze off, but if not there must be a reel missing because I never figured out what Frawley was supposed to be, though he had an important part in the climax.
The others are all favorite actors of mine, especially Carroll, the normally scenery-chewing Tamiroff (here so low-key he's practically catatonic) and the shamefully underutilized (by Hollywood) Ahn. And Cooper, usually only second to James Stewart as a bastion of rectitude. I wish Stewart made this dog. He might've found a way made the lead role interesting.
Director Lewis Milestone has a few nice moments I won't betray. But rather than looking for neat camera angles he ought to have tried injecting some life into the proceedings.
It's not the movie's age. I enjoy movies from this period, whether comedies, dramas, swashbucklers or musicals. Despite a tense story on paper there's a howling lack of suspense. The scriptwriters, fine actors and director simply haven't got there.
The flick is set in a period of warlords ruling China after the collapse of the last Dynasty. I'd like to see them make a similar feature on Chairman Mao, a genuinely dangerous imperial warlord if ever there was one.