Strange Cargo (1940)

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Yes to a picture with a nice message that is delivered in a way where you get it when you get it and not when it is preached or forced upon you. The actors deliver the story to the viewers so that it is believable and acceptable. Nice flow and unraveling of the plot helps us to stay interested and care. Clark Gable has a good time playing his role which helps us like and support him in the movie as does Joan Crawford. Peter Lorre can always be counted on to give you a good scene as well. The movie story focuses on the importance of choices and how they visit with us and how we are affected by them or the lack of them. Along comes someone who points this out and from there, we have a story of heaven or hell, salvation or worse and sides are chosen. The stakes are nothing less than human beings who are tested where they are and in what they are doing or not. Its plausible then to consider that there is a purpose for one being here and ignoring that is not an option. The players in this movie prove the point, each in their own way. I like to eat while watching a good movie. This be one of them. Have a tasty drink and some snacking too. No cell phones or bathroom breaks. Run through this a presented and if you don't...then you, my dear friend... are the Strange Cargo...LOL

Strange Cargo sports an excellent cast and they all do a good job with their roles.But the story is a supernatural one so it does not have to conform with reality; anything goes in the plot.The central theme is about man's free will--the ability to choose a path for himself. Each character is given the opportunity to choose between good and evil, altruism and greed, the commandments and sin.And there is one character who represents goodness. He seems to facilitate their choices, but mostly he just watches them makes their choices. He is a witness, a representation of someone's concept of an all-seeing being. What is nonsensical is his apparent ability to predict future happenings. This is a representation of an all-knowing being. Without intending it, the author of this plot has created an irreconcilable dichotomy--how does man possess free will if an omniscient being knows what he will do before he does it?The end result is a plot that defies logic. One might ask how the message or story might be changed if the Cambreau (witness) character were deleted. The other characters could make the same choices without a character predicting their actions. I believe the plot would be even stronger, because the witness is merely a distraction. However, those who like supernatural stories might prefer the movie as it was filmed.Unfortunately, the studio revised the film when pressured by "decency" groups. So we can not be sure what the studio originally intended.As someone who views every film as s glimpses into the art of its time and the community psyche, I won't rate this film too lowly. Technically, it has much to recommend it. And I can forgive the few scenes where the heavy-handed religious symbolism is distracting.

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.

This is one of the strangest mainstream movies of its time. That's because the film about escapees from Devil's Island is also an odd religious allegory where Ian Hunter plays a Christ-like being who tries to guide each of the escapees to righteousness before their ultimate demise. At times, the film seems pretty heavy-handed and silly but there is also an odd fascination about the film that keeps you watching.Despite Hunter's odd character, the leads are Clark Gable and Joan Crawford in their final film pairing. She plays a floozy of sorts and Clark plays a variation on the exact same character he often plays--the cynical anti-hero who isn't really evil but is skirting the edges of the law. Unfortunately, his part isn't new and if he hadn't done so many similar parts, his character would have been a lot more interesting.Overall, the direction and acting are fine, but the often predictability and sappiness of the script (despite the Hunter character) prevent this from being a better picture.FYI--Another film about escapees from Devil's Island that was made only a few years later was Bogart's PASSAGE TO MARSEILLES. Interestingly enough, Peter Lorre and Eduardo Ciannelli appear in both films. Of the two, PASSAGE TO MAREILLES is a slightly better picture.