Weiße Frau im Dschungel

It is interesting to note that until now there is no review from the UK so I will rectify that.This film is set during the Troubles in Malaya which lasted 9 years till the communist insurgents were defeated.Events such as this were also occurring in Africa with the Mau Mau attacks in Kenya.It was a terrible time for all concerned.This film being aimed at Western audiences shows the planters side without trying to explain why the terrorists are attacking and why but then the Americans rarely explained why the Viet Conf were attacking in for example The Green Berets.This film has quite an exciting finale albeit slightly implausible.Sadly there is one minus.It is the complete miscasting of the delightful actress Claudette Gilbert.The part should have been played by someone such as Margaret Lockwood.

Sweet, docile little Claudette Colbert - firing a machine gun? Anything's possible in the movies!

Colbert and her husband live on their rubber plantation in Malaysia (back when it was Malaya) with their small son. Her husband is too absorbed in the plantation to notice her very much, and she decides that when it's time to take their son to school in England, she will go with him and never return. But then she is unable to leave when bandits kill one of their neighbours, then tries to kill Colbert, and the whole plantation is set up in a murderous game of cat and mouse.

You'd like this if you liked Red Dust with Gable and Harlow, the setting is very similar. For an added bonus, some people may remember the cartoon Riki Tiki Tavi, about a mongoose who takes care of a household and keeps the cobras at bay - this is wonderfully reproduced with a real mongoose and cobra in a thrilling scene, very reminiscent of the cartoon, even down to the same room!

Jack Hawkins and Claudette Colbert star in Outpost In Malaya during post World War II times when the Malayans like everyone else in that part of the world wanted to shake off colonialism. What was going on in Malaya was no different than the French were facing in IndoChina. The only difference is that the British were successful and transitioned to a government that joined the Commonwealth though what its status is now I don't know.

The two are rubber plantation owners and rubber planting is a big investment and it takes many years for a rubber tree to bear enough sap to convert to the rubber than eventually provides tires. When you see the guerrillas draining the sap from the rubber they know exactly how to hurt the planters where they live.

The film is really quite dishonest because the natives are just simply bandits and that's the end of it. The political content of their discontent has been thoroughly drained from this film. Of course when you see the British army there you know it's not just bandits.

Despite the politics being drained Outpost In Malaya is an exciting adventure story as Jack and Claudette defend their home and hearth and investment not to mention their young son played by Peter Asher, later of Peter and Gordon. Young Mr. Asher has an encounter with a cobra and is saved when a mongoose intervenes.

The film is worth seeing for that alone.

One of the grimmest films ever. Here's a story about a place most people might not be able to conceive: where things are dying, where people survive off liquor, where those who are supposed to love us shove knives into our backs. It will bring you to tears and make you laugh. All characters are unhappy souls, surviving in a grim world. It's an amazing work and everything I had hoped for. From an artistic standpoint, there were some plot elements and character developments I didn't think were totally needed. They do however drive the story, which seemed to be their purpose, so I can accept them. Final rating: 7/10.

"The Planter's Wife" (1952) is the last of an unintended rubber tree plantations' trilogy taking place over twenty years and set in Malaysia. And, if you can see these films in their appropriate order, it is a worthwhile experience.

"Red Dust" (1932), the first (and best) film, is set in 1932. It stars Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. Noted for its torrid romance, it also contains much information about rubber production. And, as you might suspect, while conditions were primitive, colonial planters ruled the roost. Noblesse oblige.

"Malaya" (1949), the second film, is set in 1942. It stars Spencer Tracy and James Stewart as American agents attempting to smuggle rubber out of the occupied peninsula. Now the Japanese are in control, and planters must comply, or die.

"The Planter's Wife" (1952), the last of the unintended trilogy, is set in 1952. It stars Jack Hawkins and Claudette Colbert as husband and wife planters in colonialism's waning days. It features an extremely well done action climax in which they struggle to defend their home against a sustained assault by indigenous communist insurgents (inexplicably called bandits). While Anthony Steel and Hawkins are both excellent, Colbert is the weak link. Prone to hysterical outbursts, for someone in her supposed position, she lacks the toughness one would expect. Also, the film has been weakened by the insertion of too many stock shots. However, the cobra/mongoose footage, while not matching, is, at least, quite exciting. Finally, despite this film's aforementioned drawbacks, it's still well worth watching and deserves a far better rating (I'd say about a 6.5) than it has currently received.