Rating: NR
Genre:
Romance
Release Date: 06/20/2006
SubTitles: English/French/Espanol
Dubbed: English
Sound: DD1
Run Time: 87 Minutes
Flags: Suitable for Children
Distributor/Studio: Warner Home Video
China Seas proved that the recently imposed Hollywood production code had little if any effect on the popularity of
MGM sex symbols
Clark Gable and
Jean Harlow.
Gable plays the captain of a tramp steamer chugging between Singapore and Hong Kong.
Harlow is
Gable's ex-main squeeze, a "woman of the world" who books passage on the steamer at the same time that another of
Gable's former loves, aristocratic
Rosalind Russell, shows up.
Wallace Beery plays
Gable's supposedly lovable first mate, who is actually in league with a gang of pirates who plan to steal the gold shipment being carried in the hold of the steamer.
Harlow tumbles to
Beery's secret, but is unable to convince
Gable, who is sore at
Harlow for mean-mouthing
Russell. Out of pique,
Harlow casts her lot with the crooked
Beery, but when the pirates attack the steamer, she returns to
Gable's side. A subplot involves the regeneration of ship's mate
Lewis Stone, who has been cashiered out of the navy for cowardice and who redeems himself during the final battle. Based on a novel by
Crosbie Garstin,
China Seas is a programmer at heart, but is decked out with full A-picture trappings by
MGM producer
Irving Thalberg.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide