Durbin's first film at Universal after the departure of Joe Pasternak. She's more grown up here, playing a teacher, but it's still a young ish part - she's the daughter of a missionary in China who smuggles some war orphans into the US. She pretends to be married to a rich man killed on the trip over to the orphans are helped.
It's weird to see Edmond O'Brien skinny as the leading man - after the war he'd eat himself out of these sort of roles. He can act but he still feels miscast - he feels too old though he was only late 20s at the time. It's also because I was unsure of what sort of character he plays. He should have been someone stuffy.
The orphans are cute - one of them is Australian, only one is Chinese. I thought they'd do more in the film - I feel there's maybe too many of them whereas only two or three.
It's not a very good movie. They try to veer away from what this piece should be - cute stuff with orphans melting hearts (what happens to the old ladies at the start? they're barely in it) and shenanigans with the deception. There's no villain. No threat. No fun. The guy she pretended to marry should have been villainous and/or sexy - a threat to O'Brien and Durbin. This is all basic stuff - Norman Krasna wouldn't have had any trouble.
It's all done sensitively - it's just not very fun. Jean Renoir apparently directed it and was fired. He dodged a bullet.
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