Allan Baxter is the central figure, the young son of a great astronomer. Baxter, now debauched, hangs around on an island in the South Pacific, gazes at the stars and the moon through his first-class telescope, and drinks bourbon. Yes, a wastrel. One of those ne'er-do-well sons.
The island is Nukuloa, which is supposed to be fictional, but there really is a Nukuloa, part of the Wallis Island chain near Fiji. The Japanese never got near it. There's a reference to Baxter's being like "any other drifter in Pago Pago," but Pago Pago is far away in Samoa. Okay, I'll quit with the trivia.
Frankly, there are times when Baxter actually does seem strung out on something. He's slow, deliberate in his movements and his diction. He seems to have been captured in slow motion and has been given little of interest to say. It's too bad because he was so damned good as the villain who tells Robert Cummings that he's going to raise his son with long golden curls, in Alfred Hitchcock's "Saboteur." The chief heavy is Ernst Deutsch. He's a genuine German with a genuine German name and a genuine German accent, but he plays a Japanese sneak named Matsuru. Well, covered up with thick glasses and a mustache, you can't really tell, and anyway in 1942 the enemies were interchangeable.
The dialog has a few tropes of interest. "Your patriotism is useless, like a bird flapping its wings inside a cage." Otherwise the dialog is admirably dull and driven by exposition. That quote comes from Deutsch, who is explaining to Baxter why he, Baxter, is so mixed up. The analysis is concise but it's unnecessary because we already KNOW why Baxter is so vervirrt. A better writer and director would have taken that into account. It's the kind of dialog that slackens the pace of the picture, and it definitely needs more verve. I mean, there are about three small sets. The whole thing comes across as a carelessly written and acted stage play.
I've kind of skipped the plot because it's B-movie routine. But the movie itself is a good historical example of the string that followed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941. Says Baxter: "I HATE war and everything it stands for!" Replies his chipper girl friend, "But you've GOT to fight. Everybody's got to fight." Typically, the early war movies were full of patriotism and heroics. After a few years, there was less moral messaging and more realism. By 1945, when the war ended, it was no longer necessary to tell the audience why we should fight. It was implicit in stories of men sloshing through the mud and cursing one another instead of the enemy.
The island is Nukuloa, which is supposed to be fictional, but there really is a Nukuloa, part of the Wallis Island chain near Fiji. The Japanese never got near it. There's a reference to Baxter's being like "any other drifter in Pago Pago," but Pago Pago is far away in Samoa. Okay, I'll quit with the trivia.
Frankly, there are times when Baxter actually does seem strung out on something. He's slow, deliberate in his movements and his diction. He seems to have been captured in slow motion and has been given little of interest to say. It's too bad because he was so damned good as the villain who tells Robert Cummings that he's going to raise his son with long golden curls, in Alfred Hitchcock's "Saboteur." The chief heavy is Ernst Deutsch. He's a genuine German with a genuine German name and a genuine German accent, but he plays a Japanese sneak named Matsuru. Well, covered up with thick glasses and a mustache, you can't really tell, and anyway in 1942 the enemies were interchangeable.
The dialog has a few tropes of interest. "Your patriotism is useless, like a bird flapping its wings inside a cage." Otherwise the dialog is admirably dull and driven by exposition. That quote comes from Deutsch, who is explaining to Baxter why he, Baxter, is so mixed up. The analysis is concise but it's unnecessary because we already KNOW why Baxter is so vervirrt. A better writer and director would have taken that into account. It's the kind of dialog that slackens the pace of the picture, and it definitely needs more verve. I mean, there are about three small sets. The whole thing comes across as a carelessly written and acted stage play.
I've kind of skipped the plot because it's B-movie routine. But the movie itself is a good historical example of the string that followed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941. Says Baxter: "I HATE war and everything it stands for!" Replies his chipper girl friend, "But you've GOT to fight. Everybody's got to fight." Typically, the early war movies were full of patriotism and heroics. After a few years, there was less moral messaging and more realism. By 1945, when the war ended, it was no longer necessary to tell the audience why we should fight. It was implicit in stories of men sloshing through the mud and cursing one another instead of the enemy.