CHINA SEAS (1935)

Clark Gable is the captain of a steamship carrying both cargo and passengers and about to leave Hong Kong for Singapore. Also on board are two women from his past: the refined and recently widowed Rosalind Russell and the young and sexy Jean Harlow. Other passengers include the shady Wallace Beery whom Harlow eventually gets close to when she feels like Gable is going to toss her over (not literally) for Russell, the chronically drunken Robert Benchley, and Lewis Stone, the new third officer who lost a ship to pirates in the past and is considered disgraced—Gable puts up with him but calls him a "rocking chair sailor." There’s also Hattie McDaniel as Harlow's smart and sexy maid and Akim Tamiroff, a scoundrel seducing women for their jewels. During a destructive typhoon, some lives are lost and Stone is cited for dereliction of duty. Harlow finds out that Beery is in league with some pirates who are about to attempt a takeover in order to get some gold they think is in the cargo; she tells Gable but he doesn't believe her. Sure enough, when pirates do board, Beery is their secret contact. Harlow throws in her lot with Beery out of anger at Gable, but when the pirates uses a foot-breaking torture device on Stone and Gable, she has regrets. The first half of this romantic melodrama is a little slow going. Russell (civilized, a little mousy) is no competition for Harlow, who steals every scene she's in. Gable tries to work up some desire for Russell, but it never seems real. Beery, Benchley and Stone pretty much do what they always do in their roles: Beery blusters, Benchley provides comic relief, and Stone is the passive older man who ultimately does the right thing. Hattie McDaniel gets a couple of good lines. When Harlow asks if she looks like a lady, McDaniel replies, "I been with you too long to insult you like that." The reliable C. Aubrey Smith and Dudley Digges are among the familiar supporting faces. The typhoon scene looks genuinely dangerous. Fun, even if the wrap-up is a bit of a downer (to satisfy the Production Code). Gable and Harlow had proved box-office gold a couple of years earlier in RED DUST (in which they didn't have to worry about the morals of the Code), and they still had chemistry here. Pictured are Gable and Harlow. [TCM]