What a waste of my time!!!

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This is an uncomfortable Film to endure. It has a storyline that ventures from prison escape, to jungle trek, to slutty, wet romance, to Religious Allegory with transitions that are not at all smooth. The Star Power here is on hand to help through the deep concerns with playful bickering and cynical indignation.In fact, it is a wonder this thing got made at all. What with its, hardly ever filmed heavy handed, Christ analogies the Studio took a chance here at alienating at the least and angering at most many ticket buyers and Social groups. There is a deep Philosophical concern in this otherwise routine Adventure that won't be found in the usual escapism.It can be quite impressive in its glowing representation of a Saviour that is straight out of the New Testament and placed in the middle of Street Walkers, Murderers, and Thieves in a Jungle setting. There is a Supernatural feel among raw Nature and its handling of redemption is always within a setting of Angelic reflection and soft spoken words.This Movie will be a matter of taste for most as it can be seen as overdone and dense, melodramatic and melancholy. But it cannot be denied as a truly offbeat affair and for those seeking something unusual from the usual Star and Studio System, this is it.

This film is pure 'Hollywood hokum'. It is based upon a novel called 'Not Too Narrow … Not Too Deep' by Richard Sale, which may or may not have been interesting; it would take research to find out! The story in the film takes for granted many incidents and much background which obviously existed in the novel but are nowhere to be seen in the film, so either the film was savagely cut or the screenplay was a mess from the start. There is not one millisecond in this film which is remotely realistic, either in terms of events or characters. It is pure Hollywood fantasy in every respect. Two well-known actors, Paul Lukas and Peter Lorre, are so under-used and wasted that there was no point in their being in the film at all. They must have been thrown into the mix in the manner in which one adds a sprinkling of chopped chives to an omelette, hoping that the flavour will be enhanced. The film is a ponderous attempt at producing a 'morality tale', and is so corny that it is laughable. The story concerns some hardened criminals imprisoned in French Guiana who want to escape from their French colonial prison through a jungle (very much a Hollywood set jungle, with a rubber snake). Naturally there has to be a woman in the story, so Joan Crawford hams it up as a down-on-her-luck tramp who for some reason becomes irresistible to Clark Gable, one of the escaped criminals. Crawford in escaping through the jungle wears high-heeled shoes and keeps her makeup fresh. Gable flirts and grimaces and makes mawkish expressions, crinkling his brow as was his wont, smirking and looking suggestively at everybody, which was his manner of acting. It is hard to treat such a character as a hardened criminal when he is always trying so hard to be Clark Gable that surely he hasn't any time left to be a thief. (Attention-seekers are by definition too busy to steal and unsuited to a task which requires that people NOT see them.) The whole escapade is so ridiculous that it can only be regarded as light entertainment. An attempt at religiosity and 'depth' is made by injecting into the story a mysterious 'angel of mercy' who voluntarily walks into the prison and pretends to be an inmate. He helps in the escape and accompanies all the criminals and ministers to their various deaths, helping them to find 'peace' in their last gasps. This character is played very well by Ian Hunter, who retains throughout a convincing air of secret knowledge, smiles enigmatically, makes cryptic prophetic remarks, and has a small spot trained on his face to give him a heavenly glow. The theme is meant to be redemption. You might call it the Donald Duck version of 'Hollywood Goes Moral and Gets Heavy'. For real depth, Hitchcock's 'I Confess' of 1953 shows how it should really be done. By contrast, this piece of trivial nonsense shows just how bare the cupboards of Meaning were in Tinsel Town, and that when they went rummaging for something that might mean something, all they could come up with was, you guessed it, more tinsel.

STRANGE CARGO is strange indeed. It's hard to know just what to take from all the allegorical symbolism inherent in the IAN HUNTER Christ-like figure, the only man who shows compassion and tries to steer the other escapees on the straight and narrow.He has his hands full. JOAN CRAWFORD is a shady lady on the lam; CLARK GABLE is at his most rambunctious, bull-headed and arrogant; ALBERT DEKKER is a man on the brink of madness; PAUL LUKAS is a devil may care philanderer looking for easy money; J. EDWARD BROMBERG foolishly throws away a canteen of water and tries to retrieve it in shark infested waters; PETER LORRE has his mind on getting Crawford away from Gable--and they're all strictly losers by the time the story winds up.And it does take time to wind up. Almost two dreary hours of fights, guilt, loneliness, depression, and swamp fever for the viewer, all murkily photographed for atmospheric realism with very few daylight scenes.Gable is proficient as playing the kind of stock character he was famous for and Crawford is rather convincing as a woman who wishes she didn't love him as much as she does. But it's a tiresome tale with very little bits of humor to lighten the tone and some of the dialog is so full of platitudes about good and evil that you may find it a chore to watch at all.Interesting at times, but it misses the mark as entertainment--even serious entertainment.

Hollywood always had trouble coming to terms with a "religious picture." Strange Cargo proves to be no exception. Although utilizing the talents of a superb cast, and produced on a top budget, with suitably moody photography by Robert Planck, the movie fails dismally on the credibility score. Perhaps the reason is that the film seems so realistic that the sudden intrusion of fantasy elements upsets the viewer's involvement in the action and with the fate of the characters. I found it difficult to sit still through all the contrived metaphors, parallels and biblical references, and impossible to accept bathed-in-light Ian Hunter's smug know-it-all as a Christ figure. And the censors in Boston, Detroit and Providence at least agreed with me. The movie was banned. Few Boston/Detroit/Providence moviegoers, if any, complained or journeyed to other cities because it was obvious from the trailer that Gable and Crawford had somehow become involved in a "message picture." It flopped everywhere.Oddly enough, the movie has enjoyed something of a revival on TV. A home atmosphere appears to make the movie's allegory more receptive to viewers. However, despite its growing reputation as a strange or unusual film, the plot of this Strange Cargo flows along predictable, heavily moralistic lines that will have no-one guessing how the principal characters will eventually come to terms with destiny.