StunnaKrypto Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

SpecialsTarget Disturbing yet enthralling

SparkMore n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

SnoopyStyle It's love at first sight for Dan Hardesty (William Powell) and Joan Ames (Kay Francis) as they bump into each other at a Hong Kong bar. Police detective Steve Burke catches up to Dan and takes him into custody. They are taking the boat to San Francisco. Dan pulls them both overboard but rescues the drowning detective. They joined by Joan, drunken petty thief Skippy, and con artist Betty who is pretending to be a countess. Joan doesn't know that Dan faces a death sentence and he doesn't know that she's terminally ill.The only thing holding this back from unreserved love is why Steve is after Dan. It needs an opening of what happened in the original incident to exonerate him in the audience's eyes. The fact that he saved the detective from drowning already points to his goodness. It would be better to have something more definitive. Skippy's little scams are loads of fun. He's great comic relief. Powell is charming as heck. This is a fine rom-com with a dark edge.

calvinnme Having brought Kay Francis and William Powell over from Paramount in 1932, Warner Brothers reteamed them in a romance that turned out to be as good as anything they did at their former studio.Kay Francis plays Joan, a doomed girl with an unnamed disease on her way to a sanitarium in San Francisco. Her case is fatal, it is just a matter of whether it is months or weeks or days. William Powell plays Dan, an escaped murderer who has been sentenced to hang that is recaptured in Hong Kong by a detective (Warren Hymer) who has the flattest of feet. Hymer usually played dense types, but here he has a head on his shoulders, most of the time. Dan and Joan meet in a bar in Hong Kong, and it is love at first sight.They wind up on the same boat headed back to San Francisco. Dan has convinced the cop to let him wander about the boat freely because he saved the cop from drowning, though he did so reluctantly. Joan sees Dan on the boat and decides she is going to live life to the fullest, even if it shortens her days. Ultimately, both of them wind up losing their lives for the sake of their love for the other. Dan loses a couple of opportunities to escape to help Joan, and Joan shortens her life by not staying in bed during the whole voyage and ultimately dies upon the shock of hearing about Dan's fate and seeing Dan led away in handcuffs as they dock in San Francisco.Now this might seem like a depressing movie, but Warners did lighten it up a bit by sticking in a romance between a con-woman (Aline MacMahon) posing as a Russian countess and the cop who at first sees Dan as a great prize to take back to the states, but by film's end feels very sorry for the guy to the point you can tell he wishes he could just let him go. Frank McHugh rounds things out as a pickpocket.The final scene gets me every time. Dan and Joan, through their entire 24 day voyage, have been lying to each other about their fate and vow to meet in Agua Caliente for New Year's Eve if they can't find each other before. Thus the final scene is a sad McHugh, drinking alone in Agua Caliente as New Year's partying goes on around him. There is a sound of breaking glass. There, with nobody around, are the stems of two broken glasses laying side by side - which was what Joan and Dan did with their glasses when they had their first drink together. The glasses disappear and become as invisible as the lovers, presumably reunited at last in the hereafter.If this doesn't choke you up, check to see if you have a pulse. You could be dead yourself.

MartinHafer In the 1930s, Hollywood remade pictures at an astounding rate. Often, only three to five years after the original film was made, the same studio would remake the film--and rarely were the two versions that different--just the cast. Now if the original film were somehow seriously flawed and the remake corrected that, I could understand, but too often, like the saying goes, "when you've seen one, you've seen them all". In the case of "One Way Passage", eight years later the film was remade with George Brent and Merle Oberon ("'Til We Meet Again (1940)"). While Brent and Oberon were fine actors and they gave it their best, the bottom line is that the original is pretty much the same film...only better.In this film, William Powell plays a man wanted for murder who has been hopping the world trying to avoid the law. The film begins with him finally being caught by a nice but somewhat dim-witted detective (Warren Hymer--who made a career out of playing slow-witted guys). So, he books passage for them both to return from the Orient to America so Powell can serve his sentence--the death penalty! On board the ship, Powell is attracted to lovely Kay Francis. She does not know he's a condemned man, nor does he know that she's dying from a "Hollywood Disease"--a fatal illness that has very few symptoms, keeps you looking great and usually is unnamed! Both fall in love and spend all their time together--even though their love is fated to end before its time. There's quite a bit more to it than this, but I don't want to spoil the film, so I'll say no more about the plot.The bottom line is that the film is original and extremely artistic. The music and soft cinematography work wonderfully together to make a very sad but romantic film. The only negatives are the impossibility of the story--if you think about it, it really doesn't seem possible. But, if you suspend your sense of disbelief, you'll be rewarded with a lovely film.

j-keir This is a truly remarkable film. I have only ever seen it once and that was over sixteen years ago. It is not normally my kind of film but found myself watching it one wet afternoon and I can still vividly remember not only the film itself but the impact it had upon me. William Powell shows just what a good actor he is. A convicted murderer being returned to San Francisco to be hanged he meets a terminally ill woman and they fall in love. Foregoing the chance to escape Powell returns the sick Kay Francis to the ship which is taking him back to his doom. The occasional relief of the awaiting gallows underlines the sacrifice he has made. Once back on board they play out the charade that their romance can continue, each hiding from the other their own known fate yet secretly knowing their own and each others. At once almost unbearably sad yet uplifting. On reaching harbour they bid farewell and agree to meet at a night club at New Year. The dramatic impact of the ending sent me into a flood of tears. even though this contains a spoiler alert I can't bring myself to describe the ending - you simply must see it. Tragedy played with Powell's usual diffidence but here it is only superficial. Great performances all round.