Laikals The greatest movie ever made..!

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

FrogGlace In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

Chantel Contreras It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

JohnHowardReid Copyright 3 December 1942 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening at the Roxy: 20 January 1943. U.S. release: 9 December 1942. Australian release: 18 November 1943. 8,736 feet. 97 minutes.OPENING SYNOPSIS: Johnny Williams (George Montgomery), an American newsreel photographer captured by the Japs in China, makes a breath-taking escape with the aid of a tough soldier-of-fortune, Major Weed (Victor McLaglen), and the Major's girl-friend, Captain Fifi (Lynn Bari).NOTES: Domestic rentals gross: $1.4 million. Although this wasn't sufficient to put the movie into the topmost branches of the box-office tree, it's a most respectable total - more money in fact that either Ninotchka or Grapes of Wrath or even The Women took on original release in the U.S./Canada. PRINCIPAL MIRACLE: Hathaway, Hecht and company turn wartime propaganda into first-rate entertainment.COMMENT: Even by Hathaway's highly polished standard, this is a stylishly fascinating entry in the wartime propaganda mill. The camerawork and the lighting are absolutely out of this world. We can't imagine why the movie wasn't nominated for any of the year's major awards. The sets are really magnificent too. In fact, I'll go further. I'd say that the sets would rank amongst the finest (the most artistic, the most imaginative, the most eye-catching, the most aesthetically appealing) ever created for a motion picture. But no awards. Not even a nomination. True, there's one thing - and only one thing - about China Girl that's not top-flight, and that's Ben Hecht's cornball script, with its stereotyped characterization and strictly conventional brash-American-boy-meets-beautiful-but-elusive-Eurasian-girl romance. All the same, Miss Tierney is suitably beautiful as the heroine and Mr Montgomery routinely brash as the diamond-in-the-rough hero. The supporting cast, however, is even more interesting, with some fine studies in villainy from Bari, McLaglen, Rumann and Baxter.OTHER VIEWS: Superbly photographed, well played, with great art direction (the hotel set is most ingenious and imaginative), stylish direction, snappy dialogue, and a good music score (abetted by that great 20th Century-Fox sound track), this film lacks only one thing - a satisfactory conclusion. SPOILERS: This must be one of the few Hollywood films in which justice does not triumph. Although this is certainly a novel idea, the conclusion doesn't even cash in on this novelty because it's blatant propaganda swamps any other ideas out of an audience's mind. Great supporting cast. Pace is A-1 too, and the plot moves like a crackerjack until about halfway through. It's Gene Tierney who slows down the action; but she's so beautifully lit and costumed, we don't really care. - JHR writing as George Addison.

bkoganbing With Occidental Gene Tierney playing the title role in China Girl this World War II era propaganda flick has not aged well over the decades. Certainly Anna May Wong could have and should have been cast in the lead. But Darryl F. Zanuck ever conscious of that southern market if he was going to do an interracial love story could not have a real Oriental as the lead.George Montgomery who was one of many players backing up Tyrone Power at 20th Century Fox when Power wasn't available plays one of Power's typical hero/heel type parts. Montgomery is a newsreel cameraman and flier who gets hoodwinked by a pair of Japanese agents, Lynn Bari and Victor McLaglen, to working for them, but not for long. In fact Bari with Montgomery around has trouble keeping her mind on her mission. Gene is as beautiful as ever and she and Montgomery would go on to do much better films. Unless you have a taste for World War II propaganda films, pass this by.

Uriah43 Set during the Japanese invasion of China, an American photographer named "Johnny 'Bugsy' Williams" (George Montgomery) has been captured and put in a jail cell. As luck would have it he gets help from a Canadian mercenary "Bull Weed" (Victor McLaglen) and a beautiful female named "Fifi" (Lynn Bari) and manages to escape in an airplane that just happens to have been fueled and ready for takeoff. When he gets to Mandalay he meets up with another beautiful woman named "Haoli Young" (Gene Tierney) and falls in love with her. Unfortunately, events take on their own life and things don't go according to plan. At any rate, rather than spoil the movie for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this is an average grade B war movie filmed during World War II. The acting was barely adequate and while Gene Tierney was attractive she was less than convincing as a half-Chinese school teacher. But there weren't many Oriental actresses in Hollywood during this time so I suppose she was as qualified as anybody else for the part.

rfkeser Elaborate WW2 adventure follows a newsreel photographer's intrigues and romance in China and Burma. Although Ben Hecht's screenplay is lively with macho action and jingo dialogue, the women stand out: Gene Tierney looks ravishing , while Lynn Bari steals all her scenes by underplaying with a haunting edge. Much less successful is hero George Montgomery who apparently took Clark Gable lessons, projecting all the brashness but none of the humor. Victor McLaglen gives stolid support and Robert Blake is fine as an Indian child. The real attraction here is the production: exquisite Oriental decor, imaginative lighting, and some spectacular mayhem.