Malaya (1949)

John Royer's (Jimmy Stewart) a reporter who made his way back to the U.S. after the start of WWII. Rather than write stories about the local rubber round-ups the kids are doing, he's got a plan to get rubber out of Malaya. Despite the fact it's under Japanese occupation, after they ran the British, Americans, Dutch, and Australians out of the region.

Now, to be accurate, Royer doesn't have a full plan. In fact, he may not even reach the Star-Lord minimum 12% of a plan, because basically all he can say is he needs the help of a particular man. A smuggler named Carnahan (Spencer Tracy), who is currently in prison. More crucially, he's in prison because Royer wrote an article exposing him as a smuggler because, quote, 'a man's gotta eat.'

The movie doesn't do much with that tension, beyond Carnahan punching Royer the first time he sees him. Instead, it quickly hustles them to Malaya, where Carnahan gets in touch with a local tavernkeeper, The Dutchman (Sydney Greenstreet), a local lounge singer of his acquaintance (Valentina Cortese), and a local gun-runner, Roman (Gilbert Roland.) It's matter of Royer and Carnahan negotiating with the three major rubber plantation guys about where they've stashed their rubber, then getting it to a cargo ship, all under the nose of Colonel Tomura (Richard Loo.)

One thing that surprised me was, Greenstreet and Tracy were roughly the same height, Greenstreet maybe even a bit shorter. It's probably just his girth, or maybe how often movies like The Maltese Falcon or Casablanca shot him from a low angle looking up, but I'd always pictured him being much taller. Whereas Tracy I'd figure for being fairly short (apparently he's 5'10"). Standing next to beanpole Jimmy Stewart doesn't help, obviously.

Stewart plays Royer with a surface-level cynicism, masking anger and regret. When he's approached by an FBI agent, or put before naval officials with questions about his "plan", it's all glib remarks and vague comments. But once the plan's actually in motion, he's the impatient and stubborn one, who refuses to abandon the final delivery because he thinks he's got a way around a trap. His younger brother died on Wake Island, and Royer was going to enlist in the Marines if the government didn't decide they liked his plan. So there's an element of guilt and revenge in his actions, which Stewart doesn't overplay. It shows in how he ignores things his instincts should be telling him. Like don't trust information from a guy who just admitted he sold you out.

Tracy gets a more multi-faceted character to play, or he gives Carnahan more facets. He's sometimes angry, sometimes a sweet-talker (mostly around Cortese). Sometimes he's distant (also usually around Cortese), and sometimes he's outright menacing. When they meet with a German rubber plantation owner, Tracy shifts from this quietly affable guy to this not-quite snarling menace. Just a bit of a lean forward, and lowering of the brows, and a harder edge to the voice. You can't miss it, but he's doesn't overplay that, either.

My dad felt they needed Marlene Dietrich for Cortese's role, but I think Dietrich's characters are too street-wise and cagey, at least for how Cortese played it. It's curious, because her character is world-wise and has seen a lot, but loses that around Carnahan. (In discussing it with my dad, I compared her to Lauren Bacall's character in To Have and Have Not.) I thought Cortese did alright with what she was given, but it's mostly to look pretty and swoon over Tracy. Maybe that was just how she played it, but it didn't feel like a meaty role.