China Seas (1935) on Netflix
Passed19351h 27mActionAdventureDrama
Captain Alan Gaskell commands the Kin Lung between Hong Kong and Singapore, carrying a fortune in British gold. Two women from his past, Dolly Portland and Sybil Barclay, are aboard.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb6.9/103,313 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes80%
Trailer
Plot summary
Captain Alan Gaskell commands the steamer Kin Lung on its run between Singapore and Hong Kong, and a shipment of British gold worth £250,000 travels with it. As the ship prepares to leave Hong Kong, pirates are found hidden among the women passengers, and weapons are discovered being brought on board. Dolly Portland, a former girlfriend traveling with her maid, is among those sailing. Sybil Barclay, an English aristocrat, boards as well; she is another of Gaskell's former loves, and the two plan to marry once the ship reaches Singapore. Dolly tries to win him back. Jamesy McArdle, a passenger, is in league with pirates who mean to take the gold.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about China Seas (1935)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- John Lee Mahin said he and Jim McGuiness were called in by Irving Thalberg to look at Jules Furthman's script, which had stolen dialogue word for word from Mark Twain, Somerset Maugham and a well-known English novel of the time.
- Irving Thalberg began work on China Seas in 1930 by assigning three writers to come up with three separate treatments; by 1931 he had settled on one storyline and then spent four years on the script with two dozen writers.
- Clark Gable threw several temper tantrums on the set, which MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer tolerated because Gable had just won the Best Actor Academy Award for It Happened One Night and Mayer did not want to lose him.
- Gable risked his life by refusing a stunt double for a sequence in which he helped numerous Chinese extras rope in a runaway steamroller that crashed up and down the decks of the cantilevered studio ship.
- China Seas is one of only four sound films with Beery in which the actor did not receive top billing.
