By Fred Blosser
When
asked to name a Pre-Code melodrama starring Charles Laughton as a sadistic
megalomaniac in a tropical setting, most movie enthusiasts are likely to cite
“The Island of Lost Souls.” As H.G.
Wells’ Dr. Moreau, who turns animals into humans through appalling surgery in
his “house of pain,” Laughton’s performance in the 1932 Paramount film remains
a classic of horror cinema. “White
Woman,” which followed from the same studio in 1933, isn’t nearly as well
remembered or as outrageous. Still, it
provided another delicious role for Laughton and offers wonderful insight into
the tactics used by Hollywood in the Pre-Code era to exploit audiences’ demand
for lurid escapism, while skirting the watchful eye of censors. The film, based on a stage play and directed
by Stuart Walker, is available as a Blu-ray from Kino Lorber Studio Classics,
from a new 2K master.
Laughton’s
character, Horace H. Prin, is a predatory merchant who holds a monopoly on
trade in the hinterlands of Malaya, then a British colony. In town he encounters Judith Denning (Carole
Lombard), a young woman shunned by her fellow expatriates. Already the subject of salacious rumours, she
learns that she’s about to be deported as an undesirable after going a step too
far, performing torch songs in a “native cafe.” The stiff-necked governor is unmoved by Judith’s plea that she’s broke
and has nowhere else to go. Judith
attracts Prin’s attention and he offers her an escape to “something better” by
accompanying him to his remote outpost. There, he promises, she’ll live in style.
Once
she accepts his proposal, she realizes she’d have been better off taking her
chances with deportation. Horace
exploits the tribes with whom he trades, holds his employees in virtual slave
labor, and once he has Judith in his control, he treats her with biting
scorn. One of his clerks, David Von Elst
(Kent Taylor), a disgraced military officer, falls in love with Judith, and she
with him. Horace enjoys watching them
squirm with no hope of escaping his domination. The two are trapped because the river is the only feasible way out of
the jungle. Prin owns the only boats,
and headhunting tribesmen lurk along the trail by land. When David is banished upriver to one of
Horace’s warehouses, Judith’s troubles come to a head. A new employee arrives, Ballister (Charles
Bickford), a roughneck who doesn’t bother to hide his intention to make time
with Judith: “I’ve watched those sweet
eyes of yours . . . and other things,” he tells her. “C’mon baby, what do you say?” Prin takes note but he’s more curious than
anything else. How far will Ballister
press his crude advances, given that he doesn’t fear Prin, Prin doesn’t fear
him, and Judith treats both men with icy contempt?
In
2023, when it takes a lot to create a sex scandal worthy of attention, the
backstory of “White Woman” appears more quaint than shocking. The cafe that draws the governor’s
displeasure is about as raucous as your neighbourhood Applebee’s, its Chinese,
East Indian, and dissolute European clientele apparently more interested in
chatting among themselves than ogling the gorgeous blonde who plays the piano
and sings on stage. Judith might as well
be performing Billy Joel tunes at a piano bar in Iowa City. But this was about as far as the filmmakers
could push the envelope in those days of restrictive erotic and racial
conventions. A franker explanation for
the fuss and bother—that the hapless Judith is actually a prostitute who hangs
out at the cafe to solicit sex from men of color—would have been a non-starter
even in the Pre-Code era.
Things
liven up whenever Laughton appears as the chortling, smirking, and preening
Prin, wearing a cheap tropical suit, a straw boater, Jheri curls, a bushy, bristly moustache, and an East End
London accent. Prin is one of Laughton’s
great grotesque characters, a monster shaped by a terrible start in life. “You ‘aven’t spent any part of your childhood
in the slums, ‘ave you?” he asks Judith. “Well, I ‘ave.” Thanks to his
early lessons in class prejudice, he luxuriates in his ability, via wealth and
influence, to intimidate the “bloomin’ snobs” who run the colonial
government. The same passive-aggressive
rage fuels his treatment of Judith, whom he exploits, isolates, and emotionally
abuses. Inferentially, she is a surrogate
for all of the beautiful women who spurned him when he was young and poor. That she refuses to act the victim only
intensifies his abuse. If critics
haven’t explored this facet of the picture as a feminist statement years before
modern feminism emerged, they should.
The
Kino Lorber Blu-ray greatly improves on the movie’s previous home video
release, a 2014 manufactured-on-demand DVD in the Universal Vault Series. As a special feature, the KL edition includes
informative audio commentary by director and film professor Allan Arkush and
film historian Daniel Kremer. It’s
difficult to argue with their criticism of Stuart Walker’s static,
unimaginative blocking of scenes, but in fairness, most movies adapted from
stage productions in the early days of talkies suffered from the same
shortcoming. Walker showed a little more
flair in 1935’s “Werewolf of London.”
The
Kino Lorber Studio Classics’ Blu-ray edition of “White Woman” can be ordered
HERE from Amazon.
(Fred Blosser is the author of "Sons of Ringo: The Great Spaghetti Western Heroes". Click here to order from Amazon)