User reviews

Elaborate WW2 adventure follows a newsreel photographer's intrigues and romance in China and Burma. Although Ben Hecht's screenplay is lively with macho action and jingo dialogue, the women stand out: Gene Tierney looks ravishing , while Lynn Bari steals all her scenes by underplaying with a haunting edge. Much less successful is hero George Montgomery who apparently took Clark Gable lessons, projecting all the brashness but none of the humor. Victor McLaglen gives stolid support and Robert Blake is fine as an Indian child. The real attraction here is the production: exquisite Oriental decor, imaginative lighting, and some spectacular mayhem.

Probably "China Girl" is a movie for cinephiles (I'm not one of them, though). Hathaway is a high-level film-maker, McLaglen, Montgomery, Lynn Bari, Ruman are gifted and nice actors. The black-and-white photography is beautiful: the scenes inside the colonial hotel are indeed very evocative. Even the plot is better than one may expect and presents a noble finale. At any rate, it is so pleasant to see a film with no beastly violence and trash talk which are routine in current movies. Of course, for us happy people Gene Tierney's fans, the main recommendation for "China Girl" is the presence of our Goddess of Love and Beauty. Beyond her incomparable beauty and loveliness, Gene shows her usual (underrated) talent as an actress: with her sad dreaming eyes, her rare sweet smiles, her refusal to give way to love, even her bravery in sharing her unhappy people's sufferences, she instills in the audience the foreboding of her bitter fate.

During the early days after America's entry into WWII, Hollywood cranked up the pro-war propaganda machine to both explain and justify our late participation and urgent need to catch up in the global battle against fascism. This pre-Pearl Harbor story concerns one he-man opportunist's efforts to juggle the bad guys and bad (?) girls with questionable motives. At times it looks like a film noir and other times a spy romance/melodrama, but with cynical dialogue by the master Ben Hecht and tough-guy direction by Henry Hathaway, this chop suey has enough meat and potatoes to satisfy. Example of the catchy language: George Montgomery says to sexy Lynn Bari, "I like you because you're everything a girl should be, 115 pounds of lies, venom and kisses." Another line has spy Victor McLaglen reporting the only Japanese he could translate from a secret document was the number 7 and the word Pearl!!! Oh - and the reason most folks will be watching - the China Girl, Gene Tierney is scrumptious!

This is an underrated film that has received reviews too dismissing, I feel. I agree with the above reviewer on some of its shortcomings, but would also point out that there is a very nice tension set up between Gene Tierney and Lynn Bari throughout most of the story — which certainly had me watch it through to the very end. Contrary to other opinions, Tierney fans will not be disappointed here, although I agree she doesn't truly shine as in some others; and Lynn Bari is at her best and definitely makes us wish she had been given more prominent parts. Some feel that Bari actually makes this movie, but this may be going too far. Moreover, I don't believe China Girl was ever intended as a war movie per se, rather a drama. The war-scene ending just happens to be the bitter twist that closes what is essentially a war-time drama between a guy and two gals — it's no more complex than that.

Also, the camera is no slouch either, in this movie. It has excellent shots in the hotel rooms where much of the action takes place, giving it a somewhat noir feel that definitely generates an overall stylish period polish that is in synch with the true noirs of the period. If you like this style, as I do, China Girl is worth seeking out. One can only hope that it will eventually become part of a Tierny Collection. I'm certainly keeping my fingers crossed!

I'm a big fan of George Montgomery films--and he looks rugged & handsome, as always, in this one. Both Gene Tierney & Lynn Bari fall in love with him and, frankly, who can blame them. He plays an American newsreel cameraman in Burma & China just prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. After escaping from a Japanese prison, he goes to Mandalay where he meets & falls in love with Gene Tierney. He has a booklet containing some vital military info--so there are spy's on his trail. George Montgomery had a long Hollywood career & he was always interesting to watch (and,frankly, I see little comparison between him & Mr. Gable

The beginning is really convoluted, with the way Ms. Haoli (Gene Tierney) allows a complete stranger to carry her package, this after having told him it was glass vases worth over $15,000! The whole falling in love etc was also contrived. But one can look past all this (after all, it was the charming way they often made movies in the 1940s, in order not to waste time and precious film reel!) because, whenever Gene Tierney is onscreen, whichever the film, she truly elevates the quality by her simple presence. With no offense meant to Jaclyn Smith, Gene Tierney had to be the most beautiful woman Hollywood has ever filmed! Not only that, she was a magnificent actress. She was very underrated and should have been way more famous, certainly way more than many of her era who were neither lookers nor could act (Bette Davis, I'm looking at you here!) I have been very disappointed by most stars from the Golden Age but Gene delivers every time.

The other stunning presence here is delivered by the little Indian boy, Chandu (or Gunga Din, as the character played by Robert Montgomery's unbrother George nicknames him). He steals every scene, he is adorable. His eyes are sparkling and light up every time his disarming smile brightens up his handsome face. I looked him up, wondering if he made a successful career back home, in Bollywood. Imagine my shock and horror when I learned that that was none other than Baretta's murdering protagonist, Robert Blake. Hmm....

There is one man (character Jujubi or something like that) who is evidently trying for an impression of Sydney Greenstreet. Similar bearing, dressed all in white, sits the same way, same gravitas and pauses in delivering his lines. Can't be a coincidence! This being 1942, the year of Casablanca, I wonder how the original took it. (Maybe they couldn't afford him and went for a knockoff?) He's also a pretty good addition, here.

Anyway, the ending is disappointing, and part of why I don't give it an 8/10. I expected a Gene living happily together with George and the little cute Indian boy. Alas, that was not to be. (You'll have to find out by watching what happens to each and everyone of them.) Nevertheless, this movie is much better than most B movies of that era starring lesser and very boring (but more famous) actresses than Gene Tierney. This reminds me to watch everything she ever starred in. Well worth my time, and I hope you'll find her very worth yours too. Gene's performance is a 10/10 (as is Robert Blake's) but the movie is only a 7/10 (and would probably have been a 4/10 without the lady!)

China Girl is about an American newsreel cameraman, Johnny Williams (George Montgomery). The Japanese military in a Japanese occupied part of China detained him and hire him to photograph the building of the Burma Road. Johnny steals what he believes are press credentials- instead, they are the military orders for Pearl Harbor.

While they are holding him, he manages to escape with the help of a Canadian soldier (Victor Mclaglen) and his friend (Lynn Bari).

Later, he meets an old friend who wants him to join the Flying Tigers. But Johnny is out for Johnny, offering several people 50 percent of what he will make for Burma Road footage if they will stake him and buy him equipment, as the Japanese confiscated his.

Unaware that the Japanese are desperate to have their orders returned and are after him, he falls head over heels for gorgeous Haoli (Gene Tierney) who is half-Chinese. They fall in love, but she is committed to helping her father (Philip Ahn) with his school in Kunming. Learning the Japanese are en route to attack Kunming, Johnny rushes to save her.

Somewhat convoluted plot, though the end is very powerful. Gene Tierney doesn't have much to do but look ravishing until the film is nearly over.

George Montgomery was one handsome hunk of man, a former prizefighter with a magnificent physique, an architect, and known for the beautiful bronze busts he made. One small problem. He couldn't act his way out of a phone booth.

This role called for him to be cynical. Well, every line came out of the side of his mouth, no variation. Not that the dialogue, peppered with babes, dames, all the slang of the day helped.

Directed by Henry Hathaway, and very routine.

Gene Tierney is about as Chinese as I am. She is beautiful, but she doesn't look vaguely Asian. Lynn Bari does a fine job as Second Hand Rose, or whatever character she was playing as a Japanese spy. But poor Victor Mclaglen is horribly miscast as a Canadian working for the Japanese. I can just imagine him with a hockey stick. And him losing a fight to Montgomery? I don't think so. There are some very good scenes in the beginning and the later part of the film; especially the brutal treatment of the Chinese by the Japanese, and the Chinese classroom scenes. However, the film has quite a few flaws as well. I am sure you will notice them without my assistance. Watchable soap with some unexpected results.

Stars Gene Tierney and George Montgomery, Victor McLaglen. They are stuck in burma during WWII. Johnny Williams is a photographer, and the japanese want him to photograph what's going on at the Burma Corridor. And of course, he gets caught up with a girl and her problems. Sig Ruman was in all those Marx Brothers films. Mostly known for his comedy, here, he's Jarubi, the dealer of artifacts. And information. Keep an eye out for nine year old Robert Blake... was in Little Rascals, and later, Beretta! Montgomery seems to be channeling clark gable... very similar plot. They Met in Bombay had just come out in 1941. Story by Mellvill Grossman. Directed by Henry Hathaway, who had been nominated for Bengal Lancer in 1935. It's okay.

Set during the Japanese invasion of China, an American photographer named "Johnny 'Bugsy' Williams" (George Montgomery) has been captured and put in a jail cell. As luck would have it he gets help from a Canadian mercenary "Bull Weed" (Victor McLaglen) and a beautiful female named "Fifi" (Lynn Bari) and manages to escape in an airplane that just happens to have been fueled and ready for takeoff. When he gets to Mandalay he meets up with another beautiful woman named "Haoli Young" (Gene Tierney) and falls in love with her. Unfortunately, events take on their own life and things don't go according to plan. At any rate, rather than spoil the movie for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this is an average grade B war movie filmed during World War II. The acting was barely adequate and while Gene Tierney was attractive she was less than convincing as a half-Chinese school teacher. But there weren't many Oriental actresses in Hollywood during this time so I suppose she was as qualified as anybody else for the part.

George Montgomery fits the bill quite well here as the moustachioed photo journalist "Johnny" who makes a living taking pictures from war zones. This time he's been posted to Burma where he finds himself amidst quite a conflict between the invading Japanese and the local resistance. The invaders want him to act as a spy for him, and demonstrate quite succinctly what they do to those who don't play ball. He's especially valuable as he is also a pilot, and so could photograph some quite strategic sites along the new Burma Road for them. His newly arrived cellmate "Weed" (Victor McLaglen) and he make a timely escape only for him to find that some documents he accidentally pinched from his interrogators actually have coded information that might prove crucial to the war effort. He's is distracted, however, by "Haoli" (Gene Tierney) who, after a distinctly rocky start, tells him something that will thoroughly change the dynamic of just about everything in this increasingly hostile territory. When she heads off to meet with her schoolteacher father he follows hoping to rescue her - but can he stay one step ahead of his pursuers and reach her in time? It takes a while to get going this, Montgomery is pretty wooden, McLaglen hasn't the jovial whisky-stained character to deliver and so a lot of this is left to an out of sorts Tierney - she isn't really the most convincing as a Chinese lass. Neither is Lynn Bari as the imaginatively duplicitous "Capt. Fifi", and the whole film tries rather statically to mix it's wartime espionage elements with some rather flat romantic ones. The pyrotechnics are quite effective, and it does give us an idea of just how brutal this theatre of the war was in the 1940s, but there's a surfeit of dialogue and we have to wait too long for most of the action. Some nice old cars and planes, though.

I'm a big Gene Tierney fan, so I tuned into this one with some eagerness, hoping to see a film that captured pre-WWII tensions in SE Asia and gave the luscious actress some room to shine. And while Gene does have a few moments of brilliance, the rest of the film is a mish-mash of good and bad elements. The whole is somewhat less than satisfying.

My biggest problem is that this film doesn't really know what it wants to be: action movie, spy/war thriller, romance, drama, or anti-Japanese war propaganda. The script tries to be all things to all people and ends up satisfying no one. Plot elements are left hanging unresolved. One line of tough guy dialog is followed by another trying to stir hearts about the plight of the Chinese nationalists. What a mess! George Montgomery is a poor man's Clark Gable, and he's almost a caricature in this film - tough guy only looking out for himself who falls hard for a "dame" caught up in the mess that was China and Burma in 1941. Though Tierney gets top billing, it's really Montgomery's film, and he's not up to carrying it. He's pretty good at the action stuff, but he's lost in the romantic scenes. Plus, his comedic timing is way off. It doesn't help him that the screenwriter gave him some terribly cheesy dialog.

There is little depth to any of the supporting cast, although Robert Blake gives a scene-stealing performance as a young Burmese kid (of all things) that pals around with our hero in Mandalay.

There are some good elements here - some exotic shots that appear to be on location (if they're backlot, they fooled me), and a wonderful set in the hotel in Mandalay. The action scenes often move well. The movie doesn't pull punches, either - we see Chinese civilians being mowed down by Japanese machine guns, and our hero crawls across a ditch of dead bodies in an early escape scene. This is more grim than I expected from a film more than 60 years old, and it's effectively done.

But overall, I can't recommend this film to hardly anyone. There are better films about Japanese brutality in SE Asia during WWII ("Bridge on the River Kwai" or "Objective, Burma") and certainly better films for Tierney fans (my recs - "Laura", "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir", and "Leave Her to Heaven"). Give this one a pass and consign it to the history books.

With Occidental Gene Tierney playing the title role in China Girl this World War II era propaganda flick has not aged well over the decades. Certainly Anna May Wong could have and should have been cast in the lead. But Darryl F. Zanuck ever conscious of that southern market if he was going to do an interracial love story could not have a real Oriental as the lead.

George Montgomery who was one of many players backing up Tyrone Power at 20th Century Fox when Power wasn't available plays one of Power's typical hero/heel type parts. Montgomery is a newsreel cameraman and flier who gets hoodwinked by a pair of Japanese agents, Lynn Bari and Victor McLaglen, to working for them, but not for long. In fact Bari with Montgomery around has trouble keeping her mind on her mission.

Gene is as beautiful as ever and she and Montgomery would go on to do much better films. Unless you have a taste for World War II propaganda films, pass this by.

Gene Tierney never made a bad film but on the contrary was almost the jewel in the crown of every film she made. This is no exception but rather an example proving the rule. But the first lovely lady to enter the scene here is Lynn Bari, who is the perfect introduction to all the intrigues of love and war here. She is the lady of Victor McLaglen here, always rowdy and a robust fighter but also with great good humour for a cheerleadership. George Montgomery is the real fighter here, a journalist getting mixed up with the Japanese and by misfortune getting one of their documents with him with all the exact information of the Pearl Harbour attack with date and all (December 7th, while this all happens in November,) but George Montgomery doesn't understand Japanese, so that vital document never actually plays a part in the film, although the Japanese are desperate to get it, which causes Montgomery more inconvenience than he ever bargained for. He is gradually transformed from a journalist to a furious fighter, but we never learn the end of the story. Did he stay on to help the Chinese at Kunming, or did he fulfil his mission as a journalist? We are left hanging in the end, but the best part of the story is told, and the main thing of it and the film was Gene Tierney.

The plot to "China Girl" is incredibly confusing...so much so that I lost track of all the plots and subplots after a while. To enjoy the film, it's probably best you turn off your brain while you are watching and just accept it as it comes!

When the story begins, the incredibly disaffected Johnny Williams (George Montgomery) is being held captive by the Japanese in occupied China sometime in 1941. They want to hire him to photograph the Burma Road...since they need this info for their attack on Burma. However, when he finds himself locked up with Major Weed (Victor McLaglen) the pair manage to escape...and it's suspiciously easy*. Soon he's somewhere where the Flying Tigers are stationed** and all sorts of folks start coming and going....and at this point, figuring out who was good, who was bad and what ALL the motivations are just seemed to go out the window! What's next? Well, possibly anything!

The film has some decent acting and suspenseful moments, but it is also a confusing mess and I had a real hard time sticking with this one. I wonder if perhaps this movie was rushed into production too quickly...all I know is that the story seemed unfinished...like it could use some editing and a re-write.

*Despite this being a rather slight film in some ways, the scene of Johnny and the Major climbing through masses of murdered Chinese people is amazingly dark and surprising.

**As IMDB noted, this film is set BEFORE the attack on Pearl Harbor in December, 1941...months before the Flying Tigers were active in the war. This is a huge mistake in the plot.

I picked this up for very little, drawn partly by the fact it had Gene Tierney in and I had never heard of it. I was also drawn by the reminder of the David Bowie song! Maybe I should have steered clear, for while this probably does have its fans, this war drama was certainly not my cup of tea (Chinese or otherwise - sorry about that!). It is a ridiculous tale set in the early days of WW2 and George Montgomery spends about a third of his time escaping or avoiding the Japanese and the rest flirting, first with Lynn Bari and then quite unbelievably, Gene Tierney, who just as unbelievably plays the titular Chinese girl! Apart from Gene Tierney who is very effective, allowing for the fact you cannot accept there is anything Chinese about her, but the only other interest in the film are the politics. Here the Americans are sympathetic with the poor Chinese and try to help them as much as possible defend themselves against the Japanese who are portrayed appallingly. So Chinese good, Japanese bad - how things change.

I was very eager to see this film because it had one of my favorite actresses (Gene Tierney) in it. I started watching it and was so turned off by George Montgomery, who imitates Clark Gable through the whole thing, that once she was on screen, I was hoping it would be over soon. Needless to say I watched it for awhile and finally turned it off. Bad film. Would not recommend.