MALAYA

 

James Stewart's feature movie debut was the 1935 MGM production THE MURDER MAN, in which he played a supporting role to Spencer Tracy. Stewart and Tracy would go on to become two of MGM's biggest stars, but the only movie in which they actually co-starred together was MALAYA (1950). 

James Stewart and Spencer Tracy are two of my favorite actors, but it wasn't until recently that I got to see MALAYA. The movie almost never plays on TV, and it doesn't have much of a reputation. After viewing it I can understand why--it's set up to be a hard-hitting WWII action-adventure, with two major stars, but the end result is less than satisfactory. 

The film's plot is based on a true incident concerning the smuggling of much-needed rubber out of Japanese-controlled Malaya for use by the Allied cause. A cynical reporter named John Royer (James Stewart), who was based in the Far East during the beginning of the war, informs a newspaper editor (Lionel Barrymore) that he knows how to get rubber out from under the Japanese in Malaya. Royer tells the government of his plan, which involves an incarcerated smuggler named Carnahan (Spencer Tracy). Carnahan is released from Alcatraz and he and Royer sneak into Malaya, where they make contact with a shady nightclub owner called the Dutchman (Sydney Greenstreet). Their plot goes well at first, but the Japanese eventually catch up with them. 

MALAYA tries to be like CASABLANCA--a title from an exotic foreign location, a plot involving intrigue during WWII, and numerous eccentric characters, such as the one played by Sydney Greenstreet (he's basically reprising his role in CASABLANCA). The director of MALAYA, Richard Thorpe, is no Michael Curtiz, and there's more talk than action. Both James Stewart and Spencer Tracy are playing Humphrey Bogart-type roles, but there's no dramatic moment where the men show that they realize that there's more important things than their own self-interests. The characters played by the two stars stay so cynical throughout the whole movie that one wonders why they are so obsessed with getting the rubber out from under the noses of the Japanese. (Tracy, by the way, gets the far better role here.)

We also don't get much background on the main characters. We don't know why Stewart's reporter is so surly most of the time, or why Tracy's Carnahan became a smuggler. Carnahan is given a love interest, a singer (Valentina Cortesa) who works at the nightclub owned by the Dutchman, but she's really just the obligatory female in the story--if she had written out of the film it wouldn't have affected it one bit. 

While watching MALAYA I started to think that a studio like Warner Bros. would have been much better suited for this film. (One can imagine James Cagney and Bogart playing the leading characters.) The pacing would have been improved, and the story's more cynical elements would have been far better realized. The very last scene in MALAYA seems to have been added just to give the story a somewhat happy ending. 

MALAYA isn't bad--but considering that it's the only film where Jimmy Stewart and Spencer Tracy co-starred as equals, it should have been much better.