ROAR OF THE DRAGON (1932) is a fast-paced Pre-Code from RKO. It's another of those movies dealing with a random group of English-speaking people who are stranded in a far-flung exotic foreign locale, facing danger at every moment.
The story is set in Manchuria, where a bandit chief named Voronsky (C. Henry Gordon) vows revenge against a riverboat captain named Carson (Richard Dix). During a battle with the bandits, Carson's boat was damaged, and he managed to rip off Voronsky's left ear. While the boat is being repaired, Carson holes up at a hotel with other foreign travelers. Among the group is Voronsky's kept woman, Natascha (Gwili Andre). Voronsky's motley crew attack the town and lay siege to the hotel, and the cynical Carson must band together with his charges to survive.
ROAR OF THE DRAGON is so obscure that it isn't even listed in the copy that I own of LEONARD MARTIN'S CLASSIC MOVIE GUIDE. Nonetheless, it keeps things hopping during its 70 minute running time. Director Wesley Ruggles provides plenty of atmosphere--the entire story takes place at night, with the sounds of a howling wind and thunder in the background. The movie doesn't shy away from the horrid aspects of the situation--it begins with Voronsky having a red-hot iron applied to his head in order to close up his ear wound. One of the people under siege is captured and set on fire, and how high someone is listed on the cast list doesn't guarantee that their character will survive.
Among those playing the besieged in the hotel are Edward Everett Horton, ZaSu Pitts, and Arline Judge (who was married to the director at the time). Richard Dix's Carson is drunk most of the time, but he sobers up at the end to fulfill his tough-guy duties. (I have to say that if I was cooped up with Edward Everett Horton and ZaSu Pitts, I'd probably start drinking too.) Whenever I've seen Richard Dix in a movie, he always comes off as stiff and unlikable to me, and he does here as well.
Danish actress Gwili Andre made her screen debut as Natascha. Andre is exquisitely photographed, so much so that she looks like a fashion model instead of a put-upon woman in a desperate situation. Natascha and Carson wind up falling for each other, although once again the viewer wonders what the heck she would see in him, other than a chance to get away from a horrible fate. RKO was hoping that Andre would be the studio's answer to Garbo or Dietrich, but she didn't have much of an impact in her short acting career.
C. Henry Gordon gets the best role as the vicious Voronsky. This is a bandit chief who isn't above getting off his horse and fighting all by himself, and he's such an impressive foe one doubts a guy like Carson could best him.
One notable thing about ROAR OF THE DRAGON is how it uses Edward Everett Horton. At the beginning he's his usual fussy, fluttery self--but he winds up being more of a hero than Carson. At one point Horton mans a machine gun and starts mowing down charging bandits--an event that could only happen in the Pre-Code era. Horton also gets to have a romance with Arline Judge. I certainly didn't think I'd be seeing EEH doing all these things when I sat down to watch this film.
ROAR OF THE DRAGON was shown on TCM recently, and it was a surprising discovery for me, with its use of Edward Everett Horton and its effective presentation of the "White Folks besieged by a foreign threat" scenario.
An ear getting cut off? Someone getting set on fire? Edward Everett Horton with a machine gun? Now, this sounds like pre-code B-movie heaven!!
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