Four passengers are secretly quarantine from a plague infested ship and lose themselves deep in the Malaysian jungle. Director Cecile B. DeMille focuses his camera upon four rather ordinary Americans instead of Epic historicity, allowing each character a chance to adapt and change as the environment begins to consume their bodies and their minds. There is much suspending of disbelief as the story progresses, but the most problematic task is accepting Claudette Colbert as a spinsterish virgin grade-school teacher: she is fucking hot even with her hair pulled tightly back and sporting large John Lennon type glasses!
Judy (Claudette Colbert) is the geography teacher, meek and lonely, sheltered for most of her life from adult concerns, surrounded by children who are not her own. Mrs. Mardick (Mary Boland) is a stern and confidant feminist, a socialite who studies birth-rates and gives her professional advice, especially when not asked. She also carries her Pug like a football through the entire adventure! Arnold Ainger (Herbert Marshall) is a chemist whose specialty is perfecting the extraction and formula for rubber. Stewart Corder (William Gargan) is a famous journalist whose adventures are splashed across headlines and airwaves every week. Montague (Leo Carrillo) is the indigenous guide who considers himself a “white man” because he speaks the language. DeMille isn’t interested in the jungle as paradise and here it’s depicted as threatening and prison-like, trapping our five characters in thick panoply of crowding trees and vines or in cages of twisting roots. As the story progresses, we see personalities both diminish and flower; tough guy Corder shrinks in stature as prim Judy blossoms into seductive womanhood. Mrs. Mardick even revolutionizes a native tribe’s patriarchal values and empowers the women! And Ainger, a married man, falls in love with Judy: subtext for his skill in handling rubber, perhaps? Though the characters grow weary and tired, their clothing shredded by weeks of hiking through dense jungle, somehow they build strong fortifications every night, start fires, and sew clothing from leaves and leopard skins. And Judy’s hair and makeup are always perfect. Ok, her hair is a little mussed sometimes but it’s damn sexy. We also get to see Judy naked under a waterfall ogled by a pervy chimp. If that sentence doesn’t incentivize you into seeing this film, I don’t know what will.
The acting is consistently decent, and the story always propels itself forward in its 78-minute runtime but it Karl Struss’ photography that really makes this film shine. It’s beautifully framed and composed, allowing deep focus and tracking shots both on location and upon the obvious grand set designs. I suggest seeing this on Blu-ray (or stream in high definition) upon a large screen to truly experience Struss’ visual design. It’s gritty, dirty and sinister at times yet he lights Colbert perfectly in close-ups. The four frightened people eventually reach the scariest destination known to mankind: not the finality of death but the revelation of their true inner selves.
Final Grade: (B)