Tue 11 Nov 2014
A Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: MALAYA (1949).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , War Films[9] Comments
MALAYA. MGM, 1949. Spencer Tracy, James Stewart, Valentina Cortesa, Sydney Greenstreet, John Hodiak, Lionel Barrymore, Gilbert Roland, Roland Winters. Director: Richard Thorpe.
Sometimes even a great cast can’t save a film bogged down with a lackluster storyline and undistinguished direction. That’s definitely the case with Malaya, an overall disappointing war movie about American smugglers working to get rubber out of Malaysia and into the hands of the Allied war effort.
If you think I’m being too harsh, consider the all-star cast that’s bogged down by a mediocre script: Spencer Tracy, James Stewart, Sydney Greenstreet, and Lionel Barrymore. Plus there are some great character actors in this one. John Hodiak as a federal agent, DeForest Kelley as a U.S. Navy officer, Gilbert Roland as a smuggler, and Roland Winters as a German plantation owner living in Malaysia.
And truth be told, Greenstreet really does steal the show in this one, making it worth watching for admirers of his work. In his final screen role, he portrays a character named The Dutchman, a scheming, world-weary saloon owner in Imperial Japanese-occupied Malaysia. There’s something both sad and charming about his character, a tired, obese man at war with his pet bird and, it would seem, with a life that has seemingly lost its purpose.
But it’s not enough to make Malaya anything other than a run-of-the-mill late 1940s wartime film, one that just feels like a tired effort designed to be both patriotic and informative about a lesser-known chapter in the Second World War.
James Stewart, of course, would soon get a new lease on celluloid life as a Western actor in Broken Arrow and in his collaborative efforts with Anthony Mann. Maybe that’s but one reason why this 1949 war melodrama isn’t very well known. But then again, there’s just no outstanding reason why it should be.
November 11th, 2014 at 3:42 pm
To be correct, the film giving James Stewart a new lease on life, if required at all, was Winchester ’73.
November 11th, 2014 at 4:45 pm
I’ve always liked this one, for all its flaws it has a superb cast and Greenstreet and Roland stand out. Tracy and Stewart are good together and Cortesa does a hell of a version of Blue Moon if that is her singing, it’s certainly her being sexy.
Certainly this is nothing like as good a film as WINCHESTER 73 or HARVEY, but its well made, probably plays better on television than it did on the big screen, and likely one of the last romantic leads played by Tracy in a drama.
If you don’t think about it too much or expect to much that cast could get you through almost any film.
November 11th, 2014 at 7:19 pm
I started watching this one several years ago and stopped well before the 30 minute mark, perhaps 20 minutes at the most. As I recall, I thought Spencer Tracy was awfully out of place, but perhaps he grew into the part.
Barry and/or David. Even though you both liked the movie more than I did, do you think someone like Clark Gable or Errol Flynn might have fit the role a whole lot better?
November 11th, 2014 at 8:02 pm
Steve,
I am always for casting Gable, but Spencer Tracy in a Gable-like part intrigued me years ago when I first saw Malaya, and does now. The cast is pretty much the way David describes it — stand out. The film was not well received, then or apparently now, but that should not stand in anyone’s way as cheap, poorly made films are continuously being revived and re-evaluated. Malaya deserves some of that ‘compassion’ and the greatness of the players, coupled with MGM production, should not be held against the final result. Had it been shot in six days under the direction of Lew Landers with Wayne or Chester Morris and Preston Foster in the leads, people would be falling all over it with fresh insight.
November 11th, 2014 at 8:24 pm
Actually, Tracy’s casting in Malaya was in some ways a reversion to the early portion of his career; he played many a cynical, wisecracking tough guy in films from the early 1930s (Dante’s Inferno and The Murder Man, for two) before San Francisco started him on his path as a pillar of down-to-earth respectability–and even after that there were occasional relapses into roguishness, like his scoundrelly Mr. Hyde.
November 11th, 2014 at 8:25 pm
Steve
Stewart was almost ideally cast, and as for Tracy he played many of these roles, cynical, two fisted, quick thinkers, they just aren’t the films he is remembered for. I think your expectations defeated you as much as the movie did, but I will grant at the twenty minute mark it is just getting started.
The movie should have started where Stewart and Tracy enter the bar with Cortesa singing and explained the rest in flashback. As it is the opening takes too long setting things up the opening bit with Barrymore seeming to take forever when it could have been done much quicker.
But once Greenstreet hits the screen I don’t see how anyone could not want to see the rest of his performance.
But if you go into this expecting the Tracy of Inherit the Wind, Bad Day at Blackrock, or Judgment at Nuremberg and not the Tracy of The Murder Man (where he also stars with James Stewart), Dante’s Inferno, Tortilla Flat, Pat and Mike, or Woman of the Year I can see where the character might confuse you. Tracy played his fair share of two fisted Irish charmers who lived by their wits and not their strong values and moral fiber. He was always my ideal John J. Malone followed very closely by James Whitmore, who was to some extent Tracy light.
In 1949 he wasn’t yet SPENCER TRACY, he was still Spencer Tracy and roles didn’t have to be iconic in every drama.
There are some very good things in this that make it worth sitting through if you appreciate them.
November 11th, 2014 at 9:00 pm
David
I do not recall seeing Sydney Greenstreet in the portion of he movie I say. It may have made all the difference.
After seeing Greenstreet in the images I posted for the review, I asked Jon if he looked as tired and worn out as this throughout the film, and he said yes.
This is a shame, as he was a wonderful actor. He did go on to play Nero Wolfe on the radio, but this was the last movie he made.
November 11th, 2014 at 10:05 pm
Greenstreet and the Parrot are worth the price of admission, especially the last shot and Greenstreet’s departing look, a fitting tribute to his genius.
November 13th, 2014 at 2:02 pm
WINCHESTER ’73: I’ll never forget that superbly choreographed rifle duel at the end.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043137/