Hollywood's film industry of the 1930s was notably pro-British Empire - in part due to the success of Lives of a Bengal Lancer and the films that followed in its wake but also due I think to nervousness about the rise of totalitarianism in Europe. The relationship soured during and after World War Two but it was at its peak in this weird 1939 film from Universal.
Britisher Bill Lipscomb wrote the script which is presumably why there is such an emphasis on family and tradition and sacrifice. Basil Rathbone is a colonial servant whose family provides nothing but colonial servants so it seems - and apparently they're all okay about it. Well brother Doug Fairbanks Jr complains for a bit but is talked into sense by C Aubrey Smith who points out a map showing where all the family is.
Then Fairbanks goes out to Africa. Rathhone is sent out too on a top secret mission. His wife is pregnant and doesn't want to go but does because of duty. Rathbone doesn't really want to go but does because of duty. When they're there Rathbone goes on a mission. Baddy Lionel Atwill persuades Fairbanks to persuade Rathbone to come back from the mission to look after his sick, ill wife. This is a Bad Thing. When Fairbanks finds out his been duped everyone goes into scandal mode - despite the fact that Rathbone's baby child has died. Rathbone's career is wrecked and he's recalled; Fairbanks seems semi suicidal and decides to go and make money because that's all that's left but can't go back to London. However Fairbanks redeems himself by locating a radio and calling in an attack on the baddy's base which is led by Rathbone in planes.
The action component of this is dumb. Lionel Atwill is up to No Good by.. transmitting in a radio. What's he doing exactly? Spreading fake news? Whipping up trouble? Asking for independence? They never say - but it's hollow to see Rathbone nobly fighting someone who wants to rule Africans when Rathbone is basically ruling Africans.
Also the climax is crap - Fairbanks smuggles himself in by pretending to be drunk... then calling out a code over the radio... which is heard back in London as a family code word, which ushers in a bomb attack? It's just stupid.
Fairbanks and Rathbone don't get much of a chance to be heroic -only at the end.
I did like Rathbone confronting Lionel Atwill and talking about ant farms (but again don't the British treat the Africans like ants in this film? There's certainly no black character in this film who does anything other than chant), and it's a novelty seeing Rathbone as a hero. Atwill is always good, and I liked Fairbanks. The death of the baby is sensitively handled. Cecil Kellaway pops up as a colonial official. Barbara O'Neil and Virginia Field are a little hard to tell apart as the women but they give decent performances. The stuff involving the agent helping Rathbone was well done.
The production values are decent - there's a fair few African extras and places like villages and mines, etc. But this is just too silly.
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