This film hearkens back to the days when British imperialism was looked on as something noble. So, in light of today's thinking, this may be a bit hard to swallow.
I adore Claudette Colbert, but she is not the main attraction here, and the film doesn't really suit her (not saying she bad in it, it's just not the kind of film we wanted to see her in, shooting "bandits" in the belly and using a machine gun...as American box office receipts proved). Instead, the main attractions are Jack Hawkins, a wonderful British actor who does well as the planter, here, although I couldn't admire the character at all -- at one point he intentionally endangers the life of a Malay child to protect his rubber trees. Shame, shame, shame.
The other attraction here is that the film gives you a real sense of Malaya (I can say that having spent some time there)(although in reality, because it was filmed during the Communist emergency, most of the location filming was done in Ceylon).
A highlight is the actual filming of a real cobra in a fight with a mongoose. Of course, after watching that, you may wonder how everyone was crawling around in the jungle at night! And, of some interest, the son of Hawkins and Colbert is played by Peter Asher -- later the Peter of Peter & Gordon.
My guess is that most Americans will not admire this film much...as was proved by the failure of the film at the American box office. This is much more for Brits who still wish that the sun never sat...
I adore Claudette Colbert, but she is not the main attraction here, and the film doesn't really suit her (not saying she bad in it, it's just not the kind of film we wanted to see her in, shooting "bandits" in the belly and using a machine gun...as American box office receipts proved). Instead, the main attractions are Jack Hawkins, a wonderful British actor who does well as the planter, here, although I couldn't admire the character at all -- at one point he intentionally endangers the life of a Malay child to protect his rubber trees. Shame, shame, shame.
The other attraction here is that the film gives you a real sense of Malaya (I can say that having spent some time there)(although in reality, because it was filmed during the Communist emergency, most of the location filming was done in Ceylon).
A highlight is the actual filming of a real cobra in a fight with a mongoose. Of course, after watching that, you may wonder how everyone was crawling around in the jungle at night! And, of some interest, the son of Hawkins and Colbert is played by Peter Asher -- later the Peter of Peter & Gordon.
My guess is that most Americans will not admire this film much...as was proved by the failure of the film at the American box office. This is much more for Brits who still wish that the sun never sat...