Jeff Chandler was one of Universal's biggest stars in the early 1950s - not a massive name, but popular enough to get them in for his medium budgeted action pictures. He rarely had A list co stars, directors and/or material - although this was directed by Budd Boetticher, who has a cult following for his Westerns, and the story was provided by Louis L'Amour.
The set up feels heavily influenced by Red Dust with Chandler as a macho, two fisted managed in third world Asia - in this case Malaya and he's digging up tin. A prissy Englishman, John Sutton, asks Chandler to go dig for tin on an island east of Sumatra - it turns out Chandler once had a Thing with Sutton's fiancee (Marilyn Maxwell) Way Back When.
But then Chandler and his crew go off to the island, Sutton and Maxwell get forgotten for a bit. Chandler makes friends with the local king to mine tin (the movie is a look at Western commercial imperialism) but things are complicated by the fact the kind's girlfriend is hot for Chandler.
There are also a lot of south sea tropes - a beautiful native girl who swims in a lagoon and does a native dance (did audiences enjoy native dances in films in the 1940s and 50s or did filmmakers just think they did and continually pushed them in); said native girl turns out to be half English to avoid miscegenation issues; the native girl is horny for Chandler.
The support cast is full of interesting people - Scatman Crothers (who sings a song and unfortunately has a "scared black man" bit), Anthony Quinn, Peter Graves, Earl Holliman, Earl Igelisias (as a lecherous member of the crew, constantly on the look out for native tail, who is actually bald). And the last third is quite exciting, when Quinn turns his people against Chandler and his crew, and tries to starve them to death, and Chandler's got to figure out what to do - leading to an escape to a temple and Chandler duelling with Quinn.
The film did feel unsatisfactory dramatically and I get the feeling the script was rewritten and poked at a fair bit. Chandler and Maxwell's relationship is never that interesting - this could simply be a chemistry issue but they never seemed to have a connection or sense of history; you don't really care why they broke up; sometimes Maxwell is a bitch to him, sometimes she's nice - she only throws herself at him because she's scared at the end, it seems. And I know this is probably a flaw on my part but Maxwell seems too old - or at least not sexy enough. I don't think it's my ageism - just imagine Yvonne de Carlo or Maureen O'Hara in the part.
John Sutton is potentially a great villain - bossy, racist, always keen to overrule Chandler, he causes trouble with the natives - but the film pulls its punches with his character; we expect a big confrontation with Chandler over Maxwell but he just gives up; he causes trouble with the locals but he's allowed to live at the end. Why not kill him?
Anthony Quinn's character is interesting. He's a good guy, a king who genuinely wants the best for his people, who genuinely loves Suzan Ball and admires Chandler and is wary of the West. Sure he tries to starve Chandler's crew but it's a low key way and only because he believes (erroneously) that Chandler has burnt down his village. (I wasn't sure what happened to the character who did do it, played by Aram Katcher). And when he challenges Chandler at the end he does it as a man, and when he dies he gives the kingdom to a woman, which feels very progressive of him. But it's depressing because he was a good king who didn't deserve to die - he didn't do anything bad, Chandler would've gone with Maxwell, not Ball.
Ball's character is all over the place. A native girl who is half English, does swims, wants to hump Chandler but is also meant to genuinely love Quinn and be a good Queen?
The whole film stunk of rewriting and/or tampering. I could be wrong, but the large number of writers on the credits make me think I'm right. Still, it has nice colour and Boetticher does a professional job. Chandler is also comfortably cast - his assets as an actor were his looks and voice; he looks like he would manage a tin mine, and many of his lines consist of rousing on people, so the voice gets a solid work out.
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