Pacific Liner

Another of the movies that I watched off my DVR because it's available on DVD courtesy of the Warner Archive collection is one from Hollywood's annus mirabilis of 1939: Pacific Liner.

We see from the opening credits that this is an RKO movie directed by one of their most prominent B directors, Lew Landers, so that might temper your enthusiasm for just how good a movie this one is. After the credits, we're told that it's Shanghai in the summer of 1932, and a ship called the S. S. Arcturus is about to set sail for San Francisco. The ship has a new doctor with a past, Doctor Craig Chester Morris.

We're soon introduced to two more members of the crew, the Chief Engineer "Crusher" McKay (Victor McLaglen, quite a ways down from his Oscar-winning days just a few years before), and the ship's nurse, Ann Grayson (Wendy Barrie). Indeed, Dr. Craig signed on for the trip because of his relationship with a long-suffering Ann. Craig has always been a bit of an adventurer, and although Ann loves him and he loves her in return, she really wants him to settle down.

But there's about to be a much more important plot point. Part of Crusher's job is to make certain that the stokers keep the engines going so that the ship can keep good time, although you have to wonder how crewen like Britches (Barry Fitzgerald) are Gallagher (Alan Hale) have the strength and endurance to keep going.

That strength is going to be severely tested when one of the stokers falls ill. The doctor determines that the stoker has... cholera! Sure, it's not a nice disease, although my understanding is that it can be treated in the first world relatively easily. I always thought it was a water-borne illness, but apparently it's somewhat more contagious than that, and the lower decks where the stokers live and work are ordered sealed off so that the infection doesn't spread to the paying passengers. (The other thing obviously not shown of cholera is the explosive diarrhea.)

The stokers don't like that, and things are going to get worse for them when Crusher also falls ill. He's tended to by Ann, and he falls in love with her, making you wonder for a few seconds whether she's going to chose him or Craig, especially because Craig has received an offer to work in Guatemala. Eventually the stokers decide they're going to revolt, leading to the climax.

Pacific Liner is most definitely nowhere near the best movies of 1939. It's got an obvious plot, with no real suspense. There's also copious use of rear-projection that is easy to spot. Still, it's not exactly a bad B movie if you're looking for something that isn't exactly prestigious. It's something you can sit down and watch knowing what you're going to get, and that's not always a bad thing.