Carne de contrabando

The great Anna May Wong stars as a Chinese girl who is trying to track down her fathers killers after he is rubbed out for trying to stop the flow of illegal aliens. Wong the only Chinese American to star in films in the 1920's and 1930's. She exudes sensuality and was a damn fine actress to boot. Here she does it all as she goes from San Fransico to South America in trying to reveal the head of the smuggling ring. Its gritty and nasty in surprising ways especially for a code production. The smoldering sexuality of the dive in South America seems to have come from the gritty films of the late 1940's or the precode films of the 1930s. Frankly this is a lost treasure. This is a movie that is perfectly paced to keep you watching with twist and turn and odd twist. Only when a Deus ex Machina shows up towards the end that it shows its programmer heritage. The cast is a who's who of mid-level stars to be in Buster Crabbe, Charles Bickford, J Carol Nash and some Irishman named Anthony Quinn. This is 63 minutes of pure enjoyment. I can't recommend this enough, and while it ain't the best of the best, its near that.