Roar of the Dragon

Another movie that I recorded off of TCM some months back and got a DVD release from Warner Home Video is Roar of the Dragon. As always, I recently sat down to watch it and do a post on it here.

China in the 1920s and 1930s was an "interesting" place, in the sense that there was a lot going on, not all of it good by any means. Out in the hinterlands, there was a civil war going on even before the Japanese marched into Manchuria. Richard Dix stars as Carson, who pilots a riverboat owned by Johnson (Dudley Digges) in one of these outlying areas. This area is odd in that it has a Russian bandit named Voronsky (C. Henry Gordon) raiding, despite the fact that they're hundred, if not thousands, of miles from Siberia.

Westerners are trying to get out, and they've all holed up in a hotel not far from the river while repairs are being undertaken on the boat. Among the westerners is Voronsky's girlfriend Natascha (Gwili Andre); timid civil engineer Busby (Edward Everett Horton); and a woman who stupidly undertook a trip to the Orient despite her nerves not being up to it (Zasu Pitts). Humorously, there's also a Jew named Sholem (Arthur Stone) who settled in town and takes refuge in the hotel.

Also taking refuge is a bunch of Chinese people, ferrying in a group of orphan children. This puts a strain on the hotel, which is besieged, and doesn't have enough food. So Voronsky could simply wait and starve everybody out to get whatever it is that he wants, which starts with Natascha but probably doesn't stop there.

Natascha begins to fall in love with Carson, as you can expect. Carson tries to take command although it's a bit unclear as to who should be organizing the defense. But fortunately for them, they have a machine gun on the roof and enough ammo to keep the bandits at bay for at least a little while until they can possibly get to the boat. But there's also a spy in their midst....

Roar of the Red Dragon is part of a cycle of movies that were made in the early sound era and set in China's period of upheaval. I can imagine a couple of reasons for the popularity of making such movies. One is that the war atmosphere naturally lends itself to drama and adventure, while the China setting is an exotic one that likely would have appealed to an American moviegoing poulation that had much less knowledge of the wide world outside of America. Other movies I can think of in the genre include Shanghai Express and The Bitter Tea of General Yen.

Roar of the Dragon isn't nearly as good as those two other movies, but it still has a fair bit going for it. One is the setting, and seeing how inaccurate the filmmakers get it. Making the bandits Russian is one humorous error, and having a Jewish shop owner was also quite humorous. But the bigger thing is the performance of Horton, who winds up playing against type as the man who gets a chance to be a hero. A big negative was Pitts, whose shtick doesn't work for a serious drama like this.

Roar of the Dragon is available on a two-movie set along with another movie I'd never heard of Men of America. It's not overly expensive, either.