Review: Strange Cargo


Prisoner on Devil’s Island Clark Gable flirts with pretty club entertainer Joan Crawford (who knows that getting involved with a prisoner will result in getting the boot from the island) before getting involved in an escape attempt, with Christ-like Ian Hunter (who turns up out of nowhere) acting as a moral compass for everyone, predicting fates and helping to save souls, all the while emanating a certain quiet, serene quality. Paul Lukas plays a cheerfully amoral lady-killer stubbornly refusing to be persuaded by Hunter’s sermonising (He’s the most interesting character in the film). Albert Dekker is the hardened (yet apparently homosexual) escape leader. Peter Lorre scores marvellously in an underwritten role as a sleazy bounty hunter/snitch called ‘Pig’, with designs on Crawford.



1940 Frank Borzage allegorical prison escape picture is quite possibly the strangest studio picture of the time, possibly ever. It doesn’t exactly work, but it sure is a fascinating film, with fine performances, particularly from Gable, Crawford (looking every bit the star), Dekker (albeit saddled with an odd pirate accent), and especially scene-stealers Lukas and Lorre.



Worth chasing down if you want to see Gable in one of his oddest films, but one has to admit that it doesn’t all gel together exactly. Gable and Crawford certainly gel, in their eighth and last film together, there’s a definite spark. It’s more the film itself that’s a bit screwy. Fascinating screwy, though. Scripted by Lawrence Hazard (“The Spoilers”, with Marlene Dietrich and Randolph Scott) and Lesser Samuels (“No Way Out”, with Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier), it’s based on a Richard Sale (“Woman’s World”, “Torpedo Run”) book.



Rating: B-

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