Movie of the Week: Strange Cargo (1940)

This week, Clark Gable is a no-good, very bad convict and Joan Crawford is the naughty girl he’s chasing in Strange Cargo.

Gable is Verne, a thief who has been imprisoned for years in a dirty jail on an island in New Guinea. Out on work duty one day, he comes across Julie (Crawford), a cafe singer. She turns him in when he breaks out to try and be with her. She is then banished from the island for harboring a criminal. When Verne manages to escape again along with fellow inmates, Julie joins them on their voyage to the mainland. Both are uneasy by the presence of Cambreau (Ian Hunter), a mysterious Christ-like figure who recites scriptures and begs them to repent their ways. Julie struggles with her love for Verne and whether or not to continue on with him in a life of crime or to come clean. Peter Lorre appears as the devious Monsieur Pig, who wants Julie all to himself.

Clark is here playing another bad-guy-but-you-love-him-anyway. He’s a thief, and a bad enough one that he was locked up in a muddy decrepit prison in New Guinea for years. When we first meet him, he’d been subjected to 90 lashes, 16 months in solitary, 7 months in the bear pit (!!!) and attempted to escape five times in three years.

“Don’t you like it here?” asks the warden.

“No. Does that answer it?” Clark replies flatly.

He’s dirty, grimy, rather swarmy  (“What do you want?” Joan asks. “Guess!” he says with a nasty smirk and his eyebrows raised. Oh my), lawless and intent on escape.

Joan Crawford dirtied herself up for this role, spending most of the film in a tattered “off-the-rack” dress, mussed hair and un-powdered face. Quite different from the sultry parlor room romance of Possessed or the silly rich girl antics in Forsaking All Others or Love on the Run, this is not your same old Gable/Crawford pairing.

Clark hurls some real lines at Joan:

“You’ve got class, kid. Or is it because I haven’t seen any women lately?”

“I don’t know what you’ll look like tomorrow but right now, baby, you’re the most
beautiful dame in the world. Does that mean anything to you?”

“Garbage, but good enough for a man when he’s starving. So you’ll do too, baby. This is no time to be particular”

“Funny a man should want something he’s got no use for. And I’ve got no use for you, you know that, don’t you?”

Gee thanks. Not exactly romantic prose.

This rogue Clark, wearing only tattered prison garb, stubble and his typical grin, is one the roughest characters he’s played. Mocking the Bible, “It don’t make sense. Here, this will have you talking to yourself. Listen: ‘So God created man in his own image.’ How do you like that? Now take a look at me. Do I look like a God to you? This forsaken place is full of gods I suppose. They’re not working on it right now, they’re gods on holiday.” When one of the convicts dies and another one buries him, “What makes you think he’ll like it better under a lot of dirt than in the belly of a shark?”

“Don’t tap your heart, you’ll break your finger!” Joan tells him. Indeed.

There’s adventure here as Clark, Joan and some rival convicts try to escape through the treacherous MGM jungle (same used in Red Dust and Too Hot to Handle). The beach scenes were filmed on location on Pismo Beach however.

Joan Crawford later said that her and Clark did their best work in Strange Cargo. Ehhh, I can’t say I agree. This is actually my least favorite of theirs, maybe tied with Laughing Sinners. Once Clark escapes, the film gets very tedious and preachy. Clark actually shared my opinion about the script. There’s excitement with them escaping, but then as they don’t really get anywhere and are all faced with trying to “repeal their sins,” it’s rather plodding.

Unfortunately this is Clark and Joan’s last screen pairing. Wish we could’ve seen them one last time in the 1950’s, maybe in a 50’s romantic comedy. Oh well.

Nutshell review is here.

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