One of the last films Errol Flynn made under his contract with Warner Bros is a soggy melodrama which is kind of a throwback to the sort of thing Humphrey Bogart used to make - double crossing and dirty dealings in an exotic port (in this case, Manilla) populated by a galaxy of support actors: there are constant echoes of Casablanca (semi-villain who keeps changing sides), To Have and Have Not (rough sailor captain hero gets involved in shady dealings), and even The Maltese Falcon (man has a thing with the wife of his dead partner).But this was 1952 and instead of Bogie we have Errol, who should have been ideal (especially playing a sailor) but here seems disinterested and is in poor form; also instead of Lauren Bacall we have Ruth Roman, a contract player of whom Warners had hopes but who never caught fire, instead of Sydney Greenstreet there's Dan Seymour (the poor man's Sydney Greenstreet) instead of Claude Rains there's Paul Picerni and instead of a Raoul Walsh or Michael Curtiz there's Gordon Douglas' slack handling.
To be fair there's also Raymond Burr, who could have held his own with the great Warners villains, plus a decent storm sequence and a final chase in catacombs. But there is too much talk, flabby handling, and a star off form. Also - who really cares that the Phillipine Catholic Church get its cross back? Probably made with gold pinched off the Incas. The probably needed to be in colour and with some location footage to really work.
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