Richie-67-485852 Yes to a picture with a nice message that is delivered in a way where you get it when you get it and not when it is preached or forced upon you. The actors deliver the story to the viewers so that it is believable and acceptable. Nice flow and unraveling of the plot helps us to stay interested and care. Clark Gable has a good time playing his role which helps us like and support him in the movie as does Joan Crawford. Peter Lorre can always be counted on to give you a good scene as well. The movie story focuses on the importance of choices and how they visit with us and how we are affected by them or the lack of them. Along comes someone who points this out and from there, we have a story of heaven or hell, salvation or worse and sides are chosen. The stakes are nothing less than human beings who are tested where they are and in what they are doing or not. Its plausible then to consider that there is a purpose for one being here and ignoring that is not an option. The players in this movie prove the point, each in their own way. I like to eat while watching a good movie. This be one of them. Have a tasty drink and some snacking too. No cell phones or bathroom breaks. Run through this a presented and if you don't...then you, my dear friend... are the Strange Cargo...LOL

thecinemacafe The cargo isn't the only strange thing on this journey. However, the title does symbolically refer to its most unusual factor: A rather too obvious Christ-like figure played by Ian Hunter who tags along with some other prisoners attempting an escape from Devil's Island, a penal colony off the coast of French Guiana. One might suspect that this character's persistent appearance in the storyline would be a constant annoyance yet that's really not the case. He's rarely judgmental. His remarks about the others are always creatively intelligent, often unexpectedly helpful. He's even forgiving given these convicts' sordid backgrounds especially after witnessing their self-centered actions during the long and difficult escape. A notable example of his rather surprising response occurs when two of the convicts' (portrayed by Albert Dekker and a young John Arledge) very close and personal relationship ends when the younger one dies. Dekker not being able to cope without his friend (lover?) decides to take his own life. Yet Hunter neither condemns the suicide or the rather obvious homosexual relationship between the two. Instead he chooses only to reinforce the idea to Dekker as he's dying that it's not too late for him to reach a higher spiritual plateau. Besides, this spiritually symbolic figure is not just an observer he's a participant. For one thing he typically goes to great lengths (sometimes miraculous) to help the other criminals remain free! His presence right through to the end of this story will remain mysteriously, and perhaps awkwardly, ambivalent. Yet all of these characters are unique and multidimensional. Most are depicted as ruthless albeit creative opportunists. Foremost is Paul Lukas' serial killer having a past that includes disposing of his many wives for purely financial gain. He cynically but respectfully rejects Hunter's religious overtures right up to the end when they part company, bringing further realism to the proceedings. Now did I mention this film stars Clark Gable as one of the convicts and Joan Crawford as a thinly disguised prostitute? No? Well then I saved the best part for last. Their on and off again relationship (not to mention their dialogue which is snappier than a bus load of Japanese tourists) is priceless. Add the weird Peter Lorre as a prison informer who vies for Crawford's affections and you have one mismatched, very strange yet fascinating motion picture.

edwagreen An incorrigible Clark Gable seeks to constantly escape from a penal colony in Guiana in this 1940 production.After several failed attempts and punishments ranging from solitary confinement for periods of over a year, he and others finally succeed.Joan Crawford is a tough talking lady who is banished from the colony when Gable, during one of his attempts to escape, is discovered in her room.There is a fine supporting cast led by Ian Holm as an optimist,Paul Lukas as a pessimist and Peter Lorre as the Pig. He'll sell anyone out for the mighty dollar.There is also an inspector Javert character. Eduardo Ciannelli is totally out of his character with a fine performance as a religious convict who loses faith only to regain it before death. Holm is a religious type convict. There is also a young guy, once a medical student. It is hard to fathom how some of these characters turned against the law.The ending may be a surprise to others. Does religion always win out?

carvalheiro "Strange cargo" (1940) directed by Frank Borzage is a movie located in Caribbean coast and concerning evasion of prisoners during a historical period of double oppression. But notwithstanding, they are unvanquished facing a bitter situation and dramatic turnabout with the help of a woman, at their level and in quite just balance before the male coordination and with this one escapes for freedom also with high costs for both.Borzage as director was one of the most engaged against the lack of expression of human beings in adverse situation, when sometimes the end justifies the reduced but decisive recourses, as modest it was this cargo for searching another land as hope inside a model of idealism that now it seems old style. Making a movie of escaping from prison is not exactly at the time as only more one story concerning adventure by itself, but also for showing the world of this dimension of inhumanity, where love is the secure way for resisting such an adversity of mind and body clashes on the way of the struggle as modern slaves. Fighting both as characters in almost twin conception of a love affair for their liberation on the sunny side of exploitation. This is why this movie is still a reference without shame of any past except forget it and its tricks as convicts helped by patriotism won another value buying that chance and moving away in a tropical storm that never a cargo waiting for maybe as another set for steady lives in dramatic situation. That is the strength that allowed the initiative of director Frank Borzage making almost a B picture with talented artists like Joan Crawford and Clarke Gable in a tropical set, where the idea of resort is not far away of our times nonetheless other circumstances but with the same outcast maybe. The fact that Guiana was a place from where a group escapes it is enough significantly for making of this track an adventure at the time of lack of freedom in colonial or overseas standing against their will. Borzage as director from Italian origins was known for implementing such a kind of story for fighting at the time of Vichy regime, nearby Caribbean sea administration influence, as though on jailing people such as not being well seen in Devil island, forgotten them from the public opinion apparently for ever and reverting it by the exploit of an evasion screened with punch and conscience.