Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Nice effects though.

Just perfect...

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.

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.

Malaya (1949)It would be nice to love this movie—with a strong theme of wartime ingenuity and bravery, and with three stellar actors—but by the end I was thinking everyone involved was just going through the motions. That's probably enough in many ways with people this naturally gifted on screen, and the movie is enjoyable, no question. With all the borrowings or references to earlier classics (Sydney Greenstreet even has a big bird as a pet, as in "Casablanca"), it makes for a fun time.The premise starts with some very compact storytelling—a somewhat disreputable man (James Stewart) is overheard saying he could smuggle rubber out of British Malaya (now Malaysia). It's WWII and the Army likes the idea enough to send him off with an ex-con (Spencer Tracy) who knows the area well. (This is all arranged with the help of Lionel Barrymore in a small role.)Then the adventure begins as they penetrate with surprising ease the rubber plantations and arrange with the generally friendly locals and ex-pats to get their hidden stockpiles. The Japanese do eventually catch on and there is fun there, but not before a couple of torch songs and some humorous excess as usual from the likable Greenstreet.Frankly, things never get exciting or even suspenseful, though interesting all along. One huge problem (for me) was a complete lack of details. The two men would say, okay, let's go get this rubber here, and they meet the plantation owner and there is some talk and then suddenly they are going down the river with some little barges. The Japanese have no suspicions, and the local smugglers are all these cheerful Resistance Fighter types who really like to help a lot.It would be fun to know if a young viewer finds this exotic and fun or laughable. It's somewhere between in all. And what honestly holds it together for anyone who likes the actors is just watching familiar faces in new roles. That is one of the endless interests of the movies.See it? Sure, if you already like older films or WWII films. It's not bad. The director Richard Thorpe is quite unknown these days, but the cinematographer is a standard bearer of he period, George Folsey, and that makes every scenes look terrific. Yeah, it's not at all bad. But it ain't great, either.

Spencer Tracy plays a smuggler who is released from prison to help Jimmy Stewart sneak a huge rubber crop out of Japanese-held Malaya during WW II. They sneak into the country and meet up with Sydney Greenstreet (in his last film), who helps them recruit a group of men to assist, including Gilbert Roland. They use money and force to purchase all the available rubber, but the Japanese find out and ambush the last shipment. Who will live to complete the mission? I don't like the first 18 minutes of this film because I don't care much (at least usually) for film noir...and although this is not a gangster flick, the beginning is definitely noir. It is nice, within that portion of the film to see Lionel Barrymore, and nice also to see John Hodiak, both of whom do what they need to do to advance the plot.Some people don't like the Jimmy Stewart character we meet here, because it's not the nice Jimmy Stewart we all came to like. Here's he's a rather cynical newspaper reporter, and he does fine in the part.About 20 minutes into the film he teams up with Tracy, fresh out of Alcatraz for the heist of the rubber from Malaysia. If you are a fan of Tracy, and have seen his pics from 1945 to 1948, you know he was aging fast, and here, in 1949, he is surprisingly older...and it's not makeup.The Old Dutchman is played by Sydney Greenstreet, who was suffering from diabetes and a form of kidney disease at the time. This was his last film before he retired; he died a little over 4 years later. Here he plays the owner of a café of sorts, in a role not dissimilar to the one he played in "Casablanca", although here he is sweatier and dirtier.Richard Loo plays Japanese Colonel Tomura. Gilbert Roland is one of the men who helps Tracy and Stewart. John Hodiak is an FBI agent. Valentina Cortese is good as Luana, Tracy's girlfriend.This is not a great film like "Casabalnca", and it was clearly not a film into which MGM invested great sums of money. But, it's a different kind of WWII film, and as such, a welcome change. The action is pretty decent, and it does make some sense. Tracy is very good here, Stewart is reasonably good, and there's a degree of suspense since you have a pretty good idea that one of the good guys is going to die before the end of the picture. But, which one? Tracy and Steward fans will want this on their DVD shelf. It's on mine.

Even with a better cast, this would not have been much of a film. On the surface it looks like it will be some sort of action film, with spies going into enemy territory to steal, or rather negotiate on the black market for, essential supplies. But there's little intrigue and very little action. Most of the scenes are simply characters sitting in chairs talking to one another. The surprise at the very end of the film is so far-fetched as to undercut the credibility of nearly everything else. The love story involves two people who have no reason to be attracted to one another. There are elements of Casablanca here, set in a country occupied by the enemy, a nightclub owner consorting with an enemy officer, the gambling being fixed by the owner to pay someone he wants to do a favour to, and a cynic acquiring higher ideals; but it's all a very pale imitation of Casablanca. Some comments suggest that there is something "noirish" about the film. Well. it's in black and white, but it does not have the requisite sense of evil and foreboding.But the biggest failure is in the casting. James Stewart is supposed to play a sour, hard-bitten, cynical operator who finds a little patriotism late in life. But Stewart can't help coming across as a nice guy. He may speak the tough words, but the tone is wrong. His eyes shift in that self-deprecating way of his, he carries himself in that modest way of his, and he just doesn't come off as the character he is supposed to be playing. When his partner is punching someone over and over in the face, Stewart looks repelled by the brutality. Spencer Tracy is probably even worse in his role as a tough jailbird who is let out of Alcatraz to help in the mission. He looks old; his figure is dumpy, his way of moving is slow. He threatens a man, but he doesn't seem very scary. (DeNiro would know how to do that.) He is the romantic interest of a nightclub singer who is crazy over him, yet he's way too old for her and doesn't have anything of the sort of animal magnetism that might make him believable as her lover. In fact, to be honest, there were moments when Tracy looked like he couldn't act. The Japanese have been beating him, trying to get him to talk; Tracy frowns a little but registers no pain, no discomfort, no fear; he shakes it off and then looks comfortable. When he dumps his girlfriend to keep her safe, his face shows nothing.I forced myself to watch to the end because I have an interest in Malaya. On its own terms, this movie would have lost me long before the mid-way point.