Expected more

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

It is funny, sexy, exciting, and every bit as resonant today as 1935- really saying something for a post-Code picture.It's MGM of the period all the way. Bang bang bang, nonstop action, mile-a-minute dialogue. Basically a shameless retread of Red Dust, I actually like it a lot better than Red Dust. It's also got a dash of Shanghai Express, which is fine. Maybe it's the fact that I'm drawn to "souls at sea"" pictures and ensemble films about disparate groups thrown together by fate, their bizarre stories intertwining.And what an ensemble this film boasts: There's Harlow, who by now could act, working her sex-clown routine with total confidence- fierceness to the Nth degree. Acing scene after scene, playing off Gable and Wallace Beery and Hattie MacDaniel (who has a rare good role, although not as substantial as it could be) just wonderfully. She should have gotten a Best Actress nomination for this. Then there's Gable as Gable. Roz Russell is stuck playing one of the dour, humorless Brits MGM frequently cast her as in the thirties (see also Night Must Fall and The Citadel ). Donald Meek and Lewis Stone and Robert Benchley and plenty of others, all making the most out of their bits.The stories are tight, every character compelling, and great dialogue all wonderfully pieced together. I don't often agree with Leonard Maltin or find his assessments of films too astute, but he is completely correct when he calls China Seas "impossible to dislike."China Seas, a minor title in the classic film library, is the film to show to win people over to the "Black and White" side and show them how exciting and entertaining a classic movie can be.

CHINA SEAS (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1935), directed by Tay Garnett, is an adventure/drama featuring an all-star cast consisting of top-named performers as Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery and Lewis Stone, the same actors who had earlier worked together in THE SECRET SIX (MGM, 1931). For this reunion, a lot has happened during those four short years. While Beery and Stone starred in THE SECRET SIX, with Harlow and Gable in secondary supporting roles, Gable and Harlow now assume the leads in CHINA SEAS while Beery and Stone support them. Reminiscing the earlier SHANGHAI EXPRESS (Paramount, 1932) starring Marlene Dietrich, shifting from a train to a shipboard vessel, each allowing for love and adventure along with Chinese bandit attacks as its focal point of interest, CHINA SEAS also includes some doses of verbal comedy to move it along.Taken from the book by Crosbie Garstin, the story gets underway with plot development and character introduction prior to the sailing of the "Kin Lung" from the port of Hong Kong to its destination to Sinpapore. Passengers of the vessel include: Sir Guy Wilmerding (C. Aubrey Smith), the management director of the line; Alan Gaskell (Clark Gable), the ship's tough captain; Dolly Portland, better known as China Doll (Jean Harlow), Alan's former girlfriend who becomes jealous over his reunion with an old flame, Sybil Barclay (Rosalind Russell), a dignified British widow; Charles McCaleb (Robert Benchley), a drunken American novelist; Jamesy MacArdle (Wallace Beery), a China Seas trader; Dawson (Dudley Digges), a chief officer; Rockwell (William Henry), a young officer; and Tom Davids (Lewis Stone), a former sea captain now reduced to third officer due to his cowardice responsible for the lost of his crew, among others. During the voyage, the Kim Lung goes through a serious typhoon before being attacked by pirates out for a shipment of 350,000 pounds worth of gold hidden away on board the ship, whereabouts known only by Gaskell. It so happens that one of the trusted passengers happens to be the ring leader holding half of the 100 pound note. After pirates attack the vessel, putting both Davids and Gaskell through the Chinese boot torture, it is up to one of the passengers to save the day. Other members of the cast include Hattie McDaniel (Isabel McCarthy); Akim Tamiroff, Donald Meek, Edward Brophy, Willie Fung and Ivan Lebedeff.An exciting production not as better known as MGM's earlier all-star productions as GRAND HOTEL (1932) and DINNER AT EIGHT (1933), but a worthy offering with elements of surprises during its 89 minutes. He-man Gable and feisty Harlow make a grand pair. Wallace Beery garners enough attention through his usual Beery-method of acting, especially in tense scenes involving him and Harlow, though not as classic as their second pairing together in the popular classic DINNER AT EIGHT (1933). It's also interesting seeing a youthful Rosalind Russell, early in her career, in her Myrna Loy-ish type performance. Let's not overlook Lewis Stone playing a frightful mate hoping to break away from his cowardice stigma. With a cast and plotting such as this, it's totally impossible for any movie buff not to like CHINA SEAS.Available on video cassette dating back to the mid 1980s in clam shell covering, and decades later on DVD, CHINA SEAS, which was at one time a late show favorite years before becoming a regular fixture on Turner Classic Movies cable channel ever since 1994. (***1/2)

This is one of my favourite films and is as great as people say. It's got a lot of plot, some I think lifted from other sources. The gold in the steam-engine - wasn't that a story by Kipling? (Notice how the runaway engine is mirrored by the runaway piano in the saloon where the posh people have taken refuge.) And the "fake" pearls are definitely Somerset Maugham - they turn up again in a film that's a compendium of his short stories. I love Jean Harlow, and she only betrays Gable because she thinks she's lost him. Surely she redeems herself and switches sides again. (And was her real-life husband murdered? His motiveless "suicide" is one of those Hollywood mysteries that have a hundred solutions.) Harlow died tragically young of untreated kidney disease - her mother was a Christian scientist. Or is that another legend?

"When I want you to sound off, Golden Bell, I'll pull your rope"--Harlow to Yu-Lan in "China Seas." There's not another actor, alive or dead, who could make that line work, but Harlow finds both the obvious comedy and the hidden pathos in it. (The pathos stems from her realization that she's out of her league, and her fear that the others at the table are looking down their noses at her.) She, Gable, and Wallace Beery, are perfectly cast here. Harlow is the sassy, brassy, slightly shady blonde who's impulsive and emotional, but who really wants to do the right thing. Gable is of course steady and solid, all man, in charge, unflappable, ironic, and irresistible. Beery is by turns roguish, charming, tough, and menacing.Roz Russell does a fine job as an old flame of Clark's who shows up for the voyage. Her British accent holds up pretty well. Lewis Stone plays the cowardly 3rd Officer who is out to repair his reputation, a far cry from his future as Judge Hardy. And Robert Benchley does his familiar drunkard routine.Besides being well-cast, the film is exciting, with tropical storms, piracy at sea, and complicated romances. The special effects are excellent for the era, and the pacing is lively. Really a fine film.