Robert J. Maxwell The very definition of "programmer." Randolph Scott and the two ladies that form the other points of the triangle are okay, but Anthony Quinn with his pasted-back eyelids is a heavy cross for any movie to bear, even for 1945. It doesn't help that the dialog, as usual, is given to the foreigners without any contractions. "You will help or we will die." The Korean Philip Ahn is Scott's doctor colleague and he ponders his torn allegiances with precise diction. Richard Loo, a Hawaiian-born Chinese, is a perennial Japanese ghoul in these war-time flicks, sinister and sneering.It's an inexpensive movie, a love story set amid the Japanese invasion of China, and it looks slack and limp. The Chinese hills look like California hills. Actors hit their spot and say their lines, look disturbed or happy, and then walk away.It's good that it was made, though. After the Japanese invasion, the slaughter in China was enormous. It's not something the West likes to think about too often now, because Japan is now our friend, while China is a communist country that sells us cheap goods. Gosh.

Clothes-Off Randolph Scott gets top billing, but ultimately this is Ruth Warrick's picture. She's a doctor holding together a makeshift hospital in China while its founder (Scott) is on his way back with much needed supplies--and a new wife, to her thinly-veiled disappointment. Having seen Warrick in a few other 1940s films, I can understand why the doc failed to notice her: despite her attractiveness, she never really exuded any sex appeal. But her character is very likable, while the new wife's shallowness becomes apparent within minutes of her entrance. And that's the problem with this picture--too easy. In fact, all it does is lower the audience's opinion of the foolish doctor for not seeing what's painfully apparent even to the other character's who don't speak the language. There's a similar subplot involving another doctor and a nurse, that's equally obvious. A wounded Japanese villain provides more action for the story, whose loose ends get tied up all too neatly and quickly. Either Pearl S. Buck's original novel just wasn't one of her better ones, or this movie doesn't do it justice. Nevertheless, it probably made for a decent lead-in on a double-feature back in the day.

bkoganbing One of the most popular American authors of the 20th Century was Pearl S. Buck. A daughter of Presbyterian missionaries in China she developed a real love for the people there and her novels beginning with The Good Earth popularized China and its people in the USA. Though her work remained popular, Buck never equaled what she did in The Good Earth as literature. She also never took note of other trends developing in China and she became quite the apologist for the Kuomintang government of Chiang Kai-shek with both its strengths and weaknesses.Indirectly Buck was one of the people responsible for the Red Scare and the great question of who lost China in the USA as if it was our's to lose. Her work so popularized the Chinese here that when China went Communist in 1949, the shock was so great that it had to be some kind of conspiracy at work. So we went hunting for the conspirators.Randolph Scott and Ruth Warrick are the kind of medical missionaries Buck idealized. Ruth's crushing on Randy real bad, but he can't see her except as a work partner. As the film opens he's off in America trying to get better equipment for the mission. Scott brings back a society wife in Ellen Drew also and the hostility between the two women develops immediately. Very similar to the plot line in The Good Earth where Paul Muni takes a second wife, a kind of Chinese trophy wife.Meanwhile guerrilla leader Anthony Quinn brings a wounded Japanese Colonel played by Richard Loo to the mission. He wants him healed so he can be tried for war crime atrocities, a very early mention of that concept.Loo made a career in playing nasty Japanese folks during World War II and after. Played them all with a Fu Manchu kind of sneer. He's a shrewd article though as he works on the jealousies of both Drew and Korean doctor Philip Ahn who's crushing out himself on Carol Thurston who has eyes for Quinn.Romance, jealousy, and war are the hallmarks of China Sky. This story set in a remote corner of western China is a bit much to believe. Spoiled society brat that she is, the viewer is going to have a lot of trouble with Drew's pouting about the fact that this little village ain't Park Avenue. Was she that dumb that she didn't know what she was getting into?Today we could never get away with casting occidental types like Anthony Quinn and Carol Thurston as Chinese even though both give fine performances. Quinn especially. Quinn, Jose Ferrer, and J. Carrol Naish probably played more ethnic types than any other players in film history.War of some kind was a factor in China from the overthrow of the Manchu Dynasty in 1911 until the Communists won in 1949. The issues are very complex and a film like China Sky isn't the venue for a discussion of same.

Sheldon Aubut China Sky is interesting as it shows a side of WWII that is seldom seen, the war in China. Few realize the enormity of what the Japanese did to China and it is seldom seen on television or in the movies. This gives at least a glimpse into that world.The story was written by Pearl S. Buck. It has some of the worst dialog I've seen in a movie in many years. The story is predictable, and there is not one thing in the plot that comes as a surprise. The acting is a bit better than the dialog, but that really isn't saying much.This movie is worth watching if for nothing else but the subject matter, but if one is expecting to be entertained please watch something else.