Escape to Burma

Pure hokum in which Ryan goes on the run through the Burmese jungle after supposedly murdering the local ruler's son, pursued by a British police officer (Farrar) intent on bringing him back for trial, and by the ruler's underlings, bent on summary justice. He finds succour and romance in the unlikely person of Stanwyck, who runs her late father's teak plantation, rules the natives with matriarchal benevolence (they call her Gwen Ma), and has a special soft spot for her labour force of elephants. Dwan does his best with a script which doesn't miss a potboiling ingredient: a ravening tiger for Ryan to save Stanwyck from, a baby elephant that performs cute tricks, a bagful of rubies to incite a roving gang of bandits to thoughts of robbery and murder. The three leads give good performances, but the film's sole distinction is John Alton's brilliantly lucid Technicolor/Superscope camerawork.