Good start, but then it gets ruined

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

hedy Lamar has no peer when it comes to beauty. her role in this movie showed a beautiful face and a gorgeous figure. she holds her own with a great performance. this movie is chalk full of great actors that seem to be fulfilling a studio contract commitment. nevertheless, Walter pigeon, Henry o'O'Neil, frank Morgan, Richard Carlson,and a personal favorite of mine Reginald Owen. show they are old pro's. the chronological recollection by pigeons character seems fitting and a staple of pigeon throughout his career. hedy Lamar was a very good actress and I thought her role here was outstanding. her role in 'conspiritors' was her most outstanding role with another bevy of great actors. she was a icon when it came to beauty, Bergman, Loren, Margret, even Hayworth, teirney, Monroe. were not in her class. she was a good actress as well. probably not why she had so much success.

Witzel (Walter Pidgeon) supervises the workers at an African rubber plantation. Only the doctor (Frank Morgan) stayed as long in the jungle as Witzel did, and this life in a merciless climate has had its effect on them both. While the doctor became a drunkard, Witzel found refuge in cynicism, offending everyone around. When Langford (Richard Carlson) arrives at the plantation to assist Witzel, the boss tells him 'You haven't got what it takes. Go back home! Every native here laughs at you behind your back'. The newbie is determined to resist this attack ('Once I'm acclimatized...'), but then everything becomes even more difficult due to a mysterious lady named Tondelayo (Hedy Lamarr).Well, you know it's not going to be a masterpiece as soon as you see Hedy Lamarr painted black, reminded me of Orson Welles as Othello... except for the dialog. And since 'White Cargo' is based on a stage play, it takes place almost entirely in the same hut. However, the story of the strange beauty leading men into temptation and the basic situation that these few men far away from home depend on each other is good enough to make the movie watchable.

You have expect to hear Hedy Lamarr screech, "Gif me da Cobra Jewel!" in her performance as the supposedly half-caste Tondelayo, an exotic but obviously insane beauty that destroys every man she touches. Going on a rampage if bored, not getting the type of attention she thinks that she deserves, or just not clad in enough jewelry, Tondelayo is the type of female that should be abandoned on a deserted island far away from any man. When rubber plantation owner Walter Pidgeon looses interest in her, she sets her sights on newcomer Richard Carlson who is no match for her spider woman wiles. They marry against Pidgeon's harsh advice, but instantly bored, she sets up a jealous fight between Carlson and Pidgeon which pleases her needy quest for being the focus of every man's desires.All that is needed is a quick shot saying her famous line, "I am Tondelayo", and the camera cuts out to let her and Carlson move onto a seduction. They say that a man chases a girl until she catches him, but in this case, Carlson is indeed going to catch something, and it isn't the type of woman you want to spend the rest of your life with. Almost an update of the old Theda Bara "A Fool There Was" plot ("Kiss Me My Fool!"), this just adds sandy beaches and mosquito netting to the mix. Frank Morgan is the drunken doctor, both comical and pathetic, while Reginald Owen has some amusingly droll bits.It is the campiness that saves this from being a bore. Lamarr, in dark makeup surrounded by little light, only slightly melts her icy interior as long as she is out to get what she wants from the men around her. The result are melodramatics that probably upset the producers over at Universal who were preparing similar vehicles for Maria Montez, and made the producers of Dorothy Lamour's sarong films over at Paramount laugh hysterically. It wouldn't take a child to see what this evil creature known as Tondelayo was up to, so when the payoff comes, it is an absolute hoot. The final reminded me of the consequences for villainy as seen for Bela Logosi in 1935's "The Raven" and Judith Anderson in 1940's "Rebecca". Walter Pidgeon wisely returned to the more sobering partnership with Greer Garson after this, while the bland Carlson drifted along as far as he could on the silver screen, while Lamarr had to wait until the end of the decade to play another temptress, Biblical vixen Delilah.

The character Tondelayo was totally non-credible. The role should have been cast using a black actress with some kind of accent. I think using Hedy Lamarr for this part ruined the whole movie. Ms. Lamarr looked like a white Austrian actress with dark makeup and she sounded like she was using a phony accent. It seems as though the producer was determined to produce this movie so he could cast Ms. Lamarr in the role. This resulted in turning what might have been a better-than-average movie into something totally non-believable. Ms. Lamarr was the "fly in the ointment" in this film. Black actresses may have been hard to come by in 1942, but it would not have been impossible to find one.