Thanks for the memories!

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

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

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

Producer: Edwin H. Knopf. Copyright 25 November 1949 by Loew's Inc. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer picture. New York opening at the Capitol: 22 February 1950. U.S. release: 6 January 1950. U.K. release: 16 January 1950. Australian release: 1 June 1950. 8,557 feet. 95 minutes. Alternate U.S. title: Alien Orders. U.K. release title: EAST OF THE RISING SUN.COMMENT: Disappointingly little action can be glimpsed in this over-talkative account of rubber smuggling in war-time Malaya. Not only is the screenplay irritatingly slow in getting under way, but Richard Thorpe's stolidly unimaginative, heavy-handed direction kills whatever promise the original yarn might have possessed. At times, would you believe, the script presents feeble echoes of Cacablanca, - for example in the sequence where George Folsey's camera caresses Cortesa singing "Those Little Things".The marquee interest stimulated by the teaming of Tracy and Stewart also proves a fizzer. Indeed, all the acting rates as disappointingly routine. Richard Loo's charming manners come across as no substitute for Casablanca's Claude Rains ("I'm just a corrupt public official"), while Sydney Greenstreet renders his customary characterisation with a glumly dispirited air that effectively conveys his total dissatisfaction with the movie in general and Thorpe's impersonal handling in particular. Keen-eyed fans will have to stay wide awake to catch sight of Gilbert Roland who has one of the smallest and least consequential roles of his career. Likewise Lionel Barrymore, whose two scenes do him little credit.To sum up, the picture falls resoundingly flat. Despite a tolerably large budget and a fair dollop of surface gloss, Malaya proves once again that even the strongest cast cannot survive a tepid script and dull direction.

This film has some really great actors in it - Sydney Greenstreet, Spencer Tracey, Lionel Barrymore, James Stewart, Gilbert Roland, John Hodiak, Richard Loo, etc. And it's got an exotic location (Malaya) and a war-time plot (getting rubber to outfit the US war machine in WW2). But it never manages to get going, maybe because Spencer Tracey was never really an "action" star, or maybe because the director Richard Thorpe, while prolific, wasn't particularly skilled in this genre (he's best known for Ivanhoe, Knights of the Round Table, The Great Caruso, The Student Prince).It's worth a look, and Barrymore and Greenstreet do their usual wonderful jobs.

WW2-set story about a plot to smuggle rubber out of Japanese-occupied Malaya. Reporter Jimmy Stewart, whose brother was killed by the Japanese, enlists in the war and is tasked with the smuggling operation, a nearly impossible mission he boasts he can do easily with the help of an old friend. That friend being Spencer Tracy, currently serving time at Alcatraz.Watchable time-killer that's a bit of a disappointment given the cast. Notable for being the final film of Sydney Greenstreet. Despite his failing health at this time, Greenstreet is still the most lively actor in the bunch. Tracy and Stewart are just going through the motions, not that the dull script or pedestrian direction do much to help them. Also the last film Stewart made with Lionel Barrymore, whose part is unfortunately small.

This is a good action-adventure picture based on the true account of how very necessary rubber was gotten out of Malaya, under the nose of the Japanese, for the Allied war effort in World War Two.Spencer Tracy and James Stewart are teamed as a two-fisted con (sprung from Alcatraz for the job) and a hard-bitten reporter recruited by American intelligence (represented by John Hodiak). There's some action, some atmosphere, some romance. The premise of the film is unusual enough to hold your interest. Like some other MGM films of the time, the entire foreign locale has been recreated on the back lot and the sound stages of the studio. You may recognize the river area and other locations from earlier films.The direction by Richard Thorpe is, as usual, competent. If you're a fan of masculine-oriented action-adventure films from that era, this one has good acting, writing, and a touch of intelligence. The fine cast includes Sydney Greenstreet, Valentina Cortesa, Gilbert Roland, and Lionel Barrymore.