Chester Gan Movies

Set in Japanese-occupied China shortly before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, this action/drama stars Alan Ladd as Mr. Jones, a cynically materialistic American who has no qualms about selling oil to the enemy; as far as he's concerned, their money spends as well as anyone's. Against the advice of his friend and partner Johnny Sparrow (William Bendix), Jones heads to Shanghai to negotiate a sale with representatives of the Japanese government. En route, Jones and Sparrow are caught in a massive rainstorm that leaves the roads all but impossible to navigate; the yanks are also stopped by Chinese guerilla troops, who force them to take on a group of schoolgirls and their instructor, an American named Carolyn Grant (Loretta Young). Between the patriotic Carolyn, the Chinese schoolgirls, and a baby that Sparrow rescued from the side of the road, Jones has a lot more going on than he's used to dealing with, but the situation forces him to take a long, hard look at his personal politics. When he discovers that one of the girls was brutally raped by Japanese soldiers after she tried to return to her family, Jones decides he can no longer stand alongside the Japanese and kills the three soldiers responsible. This was one of a small number of pro-China films made in the United States during World War II, when the two countries had a mutual enemy in Japan; however, a few years down the line, Hollywood's attitude towards China would be markedly different. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Forced to flee Paris during the Occupation, the great French leading man Jean Gabin starred in a brace of Hollywood films, the best of which was the first, 20th Century-Fox's Moontide. Cast to type, Gabin plays Bobo, a brooding itinerant dock-worker who gets mixed up in a drunken brawl. Upon awakening, Bobo is convinced that he has killed a man by his mercenary "pal" Tiny (Thomas Mitchell). Despairing at the thought of having committed murder, not to mentioned being blackmailed for the rest of his life by the treacherous Tiny, Bobo is able to find a few fleeting moments of happiness with Anna (Ida Lupino), a suicidal young girl whom he has saved from a watery grave (The intensity of the love scenes may well be due to the allegedly real-life romance between Jean Gabin and Ida Lupino). Novelist John O'Hara adapted the screenplay from a book by actor Willard Robertson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

A lively espionage drama that reunited the stars and director of the previous year's The Maltese Falcon, Across the Pacific was originally envisioned as the story of a Japanese invasion of Hawaii. Real-life events of December of 1941, however, precluded such a scenario and the location was changed to the Panama Canal. For reasons known only to Warner Bros., the title was retained despite the fact that none of the action takes place in the Pacific. Humphrey Bogart plays Rick Leland, a disgraced ex-army man, who, after being turned down by the Canadian military, jumps a Japanese steamer bound for the Panama Canal Zone. Also onboard are Alberta Marlow (Mary Astor), a small-town girl claiming to be en route to Los Angeles; Dr. Lorenz (Sydney Greenstreet), a corpulent sociologist with a suspiciously friendly regard for all things Japanese; and Joe Totsuiko (Victor Sen Yung), a happy-go-lucky second generation Japanese-American on his way to visit the old country. But no one is exactly who he or she claims to be and the voyage from Halifax via New York City to Panama becomes a matter of life and death for the passengers in general, and for the future of the United States in particular. Director John Huston was forced to leave the film three weeks into the four-week shooting schedule when summoned to report to the Department of Special Services. According to Huston, he purposefully placed Humphrey Bogart's character in a highly precarious situation and left it up to his replacement, Vincent Sherman, to come up with the solution -- which Sherman did in an especially fiery climax. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Its "timely" title notwithstanding, Escape From Hong Kong is simply more of the he-man derring-do that Universal had been grinding out since the silent era. The stars are Leo Carrillo, Andy Devine and Don Terry, previously teamed in Unseen Enemy and soon to be costarred in the studio's Top Sergeant and Danger in the Pacific. Our three heroes are first seen operating a sharpshooting concession in a Hong Kong variety show. The act breaks up when Rusty (Terry) falls in love with Valerie Hale (Marjorie Lord), who turns out to be a British Intelligence Agent assigned to plug security leaks in the Orient. Rusty's pals Pancho (Carrillo) and Blimp (Devine) wrongly assume that Valerie is a German spy, and act accordingly, wreaking all sorts of havoc. By the time everything is straightened out, it's December 7th, and the four protagonists are forced to make a hasty exit from Hong Kong before they're blown to bits by Japanese bomber planes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

China Girl charts the exploits of two-fisted newsreel photographer Johnny Williams (George Montgomery), stationed in Burma and China in the early stage of WW II. Captured by the Japanese, he escapes from a concentration camp with the aid of beautiful, enigmatic "China Girl" Miss Young (Gene Tierney). The two arduously make their way back to friendly lines so that Johnny can deliver the vital military information he's managed to glean from his captors. Though it probably wasn't supposed to happen this way, Lynn Bari steals the film from official star Gene Tierney. China Girl was scripted by Ben Hecht with his usual blend of sentiment and cynicism. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The Get-Away is a remake of 1935's Public Hero Number One, using generous amounts of stock footage from the earlier film. Robert Sterling, Donna Reed and Dan Dailey (billed as Dan Dailey Jr.) fill the roles originally played by Chester Morris, Jean Arthur and Joseph Calleia. In order to get the goods on mobster Sonny Black (Dailey), G-man Jeff Crane (Sterling) has himself thrown into prison, where Black is currently doing time on a lesser charge. The FBI's plan is to arrange a jailbreak for Crane and Black, then lie in wait as Black makes his way back to his old gang, the better to capture the whole bunch. Complicating this scheme is the fact that Crane has fallen in love with Black's sister Maria (Reed). In an attempt to update this 1935-vintage yarn, it is emphasized that Black's crimes include the robbing of US defense payrolls. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Originally slated as a Boris Karloff-Bela Lugosi vehicle, Man Made Monster emerged on screen as a tour de force for Lon Chaney Jr. (in his first horror-film starring role) and Lionel Atwill. Chaney plays Dynamo Dan the Electric Man, a sideshow performer whose talent for absorbing mass quantities of electricity enables him to emerge virtually unscathed when a bus crashes into a pylon. Dan recuperates in the home of Dr. Rigas (Lionel Atwill), a demented scientist ("Mad? Of course I'm mad!") who hopes to create a race of electric-powered supermen. Using Dan as his unwitting guinea pig, Rigas zaps the poor man's energy even as he injects more and more electricity into his system. Suspecting something is amiss when rabbits and goldfish die suddenly at his touch, Dan nonetheless continues to submit to Rigas' treatment. When the doctor's colleague Lawrence (Samuel S. Hinds) figures out what's going on, he confronts Rigas with a "You're mad! I'm going to notify the police!"-whereupon Rigas picks up his cue by ordering the now-zombiefied Dan to kill Lawrence and confess to the murder. The unfortunate fellow is convicted and sentenced to the electric chair, much to the delight of Rigas, who can now put his theories to the ultimate test. Surviving the death-house jolt, Dan absorbs the entire electrical current and becomes a walking, glowing human power plant, killing the warden and the guards and escaping into the countryside. Slowly dying, Dan finally regains a shred of his humanity by rescuing heroine June Lawrence (Anne Nagel) from the clutches of Regas, then puts a permanent end to the mad doctor's evil designs before spectacularly expiring himself. A prime example of Universal's B-picture unit at its peak, Man Made Monster is among the finest of the studio's second-echelon horror product. The film was re-released in the late 1940s under the timely cognomen The Atomic Monster. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

They Met in Bombay is a typical MGM star vehicle, in which the leading players are called upon to carry a pencil-thin plotline on the force of sheer personality. Clark Gable and Rosalind Russell play Gerald Meldrick and Anya Von Duren, a pair of rival jewel thieves at large in India. Both parties are after the same prize, a priceless diamond owned by the Duchess of Beltravers (Jessie Ralph). To inveigle their way into the Duchess' confidence, Gerald poses as a Scotland Yard detective, while Anya pretends to be an aristocrat. After several reels of cross-purposes, hero and heroine decide to team up, keeping one step ahead of a diligent police inspector (Matthew Boulton) and mercenary freighter captain Chang (Peter Lorre). Both Gerald and Anya betray the nobler sides of their natures in the final reels, participating in a pitched battle against invading Japanese military forces. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The once-in-a-lifetime teaming of Mae West and W.C. Fields in My Little Chickadee had the potential for comic greatness: what emerged, though generally entertaining, was, in the words of critic Andrew Sarris, "more funny strange than funny ha-ha." Mae West dominates the film's first reel as Flowerbelle Lee, a self-reliant woman who is abducted by a mysterious masked bandit during a stagecoach holdup. Because she refuses to tell anyone what happened during her nocturnal rendezvous with the bandit, Flowerbelle is invited to leave her prudish hometown and move to Greasewood City. En route by train, Flowerbelle makes the acquaintance of con-artist Cuthbert J. Twillie (W.C. Fields), who carries a suitcase full of what seems to be large-denomination monetary notes. After a lively clash with marauding Indians, Flowerbelle tricks Twillie into a phony marriage; she does this so that she can arrive in Greasewood City with a modicum of respectability, and incidentally to get her hands on Twillie's bankroll. Once she discovers that Twillie's "fortune" consists of nothing but phony oil-well coupons, Flowerbelle refuses to allow Twillie into the bridal chamber (he unwittingly crawls into the marriage bed with a goat, muttering "Darling, have you changed your perfume?") Through a fluke, the cowardly Twillie is appointed sheriff of Greasewood City by town boss Joseph Calleila. The plot is put on hold for two reels while La West does a "schoolroom" routine with a class full of markedly overage students, and while Fields performs a bartender bit wherein he explains how he once knocked down the notorious Chicago Mollie. Jealous over the attentions paid to his "wife" by Calleila and honest newspaper-editor Dick Foran, Twillie decides to gain entry into his wife's boudoir by posing as the still-at-large masked bandit. His ruse is soon discovered by Flowerbelle, but the townsfolk capture Twillie as he makes his escape. They are about to lynch the hapless Twillie when Flowerbelle discovers that Calleia is the genuine masked bandit. She urges Calleia to save Twillie's life by making a surprise appearance at the lynching and by returning the money he's stolen. When all plot lines are ironed out, Flowerbelle and Twillie bid goodbye to one another. Borrowing a device utilized by ZaSu Pitts and Hugh Herbert in 1939's The Lady's From Kentucky, W.C. Fields invites Mae West to "come up and see me sometime," whereupon West appropriates Fields' tagline and calls him "My Little Chickadee." The script for this uneven comedy western was credited to Mae West and W.C. Fields, though in fact West was responsible for most of it. Fields willingly conceded this, noting that West had captured his character better than any other writer he'd ever met. Despite this seeming gallantry, it was no secret that West and Fields disliked each other intensely, a fact that had an injurious effect on their scenes together. My Little Chickadee has assumed legendary status thanks to its stars, and it certainly does deliver the laughs when necessary: still, it is hardly the best-ever vehicle for either Fields or West, two uniquely individual performers who should never have been required to duke it out for the same spotlight. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Monogram's answer to Republic's Gene Autry, Tex Ritter was never successful in his choice of sidekicks. In Pals of the Silver Sage he had to contend with bucolic Slim Andrews, who at least was a personal friend if no bargain in the comedy department. But this time he was also saddled with one Sugar Dawn, a very resistible child actress who would reappear in The Golden Trail) (not to mention haunt Tom Keene in no less than five consecutive oaters). Ritter, Andrews and little Miss Dawn filmed Pals of the Silver Sage in picturesque Tejon Ranch near Lebec, California, but that was the really the Western's only recommendation. Orphaned Sugar Dawn is in danger of losing her ranch unless she can make the deadline for a cattle delivery. But foreman Jeff (Dawn?) (Carleton Young), who is also the girl's cousin, is in the employ of nefarious neighbor Vic Insley (Glenn Strange). Enter Tex Wright (Ritter) and his sidekick Cactus (Andrews) who concoct a scheme to trap the villains. Tex is mistaken for a rustler along the way but everything is cleared up within the allotted 52 minutes. Ritter sang Prairie Fairy Tale by Johnny Lange and Lew Porter but otherwise kept the warbling to a minimum. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

Roy Rogers plays an outlaw out to avenge the murder of his brother in this fine Republic Western directed by one of the masters of the genre, Joseph Kane. Learning that the man he believes to be the killer, Lee Jessup (Bob Steele), is running a gambling establishment in Sonora, the Kid manages to obtain a job body guarding Jessup's saloon and its star attraction, Joby (Pauline Moore). But although intent on biding his time, the hero cannot stand idly by while Jessup is taking advantage of a naïve prospector (Noah Beery Jr.) and is forced to show his hand. One of Rogers' better early vehicles, The Carson City Kid is enlivened by a couple of good songs, including "Are You the One?" and "Sonora Moon," both by Peter Tinturia and performed by Rogers and Moore (who later admitted to having been dubbed). ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

The second film in the mystery series about a Chinese sleuth, this one concerns the theft of the "Eye of the Daughter of the Moon," the largest star sapphire in the world, which is stolen from China and turns up in the possession of an unscrupulous gem collector, who receives a death threat containing clues to the potential murderer's identity and calls in Mr. Wong. During a game of charades, the lights mysteriously go out and the collector is shot, and the chase is on. ~ Steve Huey, All Movie Guide