Malaya
Closed CaptioningRichard Thorpe
Open iTunes to preview, buy, and download this movie.
Plot Summary
Smuggling landed Carnahan in Alcatraz. Smuggling will be his ticket out. It's World War II, and Uncle Sam needs a man of Carnahan's bold talent to sneak vitally needed rubber out of Japanese-held Malaya. The rare pairing of James Stewart and Spencer Tracy sparks this tale of an intrigue-filled, true-life wartime operation. Tracy portrays tough, edgy Carnahan. Stewart is sly foreign correspondent and Far East expert John Royer, a man with a plan who tells U.S. officials: "With the right kind of money and the wrong kind of man, I can get that rubber out for you." And with its right kind of stars, this brawny classic gets maximum heroics every moment. Adventure and starpower - Sydney Greenstreet in his final film, Lionel Barrymore and Gilbert Roland - are on the map in Malaya.
Credits
Director
Customer Reviews
Customer
It seems that not many people have heard of "Malaya." It's time they did. This is a fantastically romantic and witty WW II adventure. Spencer Tracy has never seemed so full of the joy of life and acting, James Stewart offers a beautiful dark contrast to his work, and the everyone else in the cast is firing on all cylinders. Frank Fenton's screeplay is rich in probing, quotable dialogue. The suspense never lets up. And here's a statement that some may consider blasphemous: the rapport between Tracy and Valentina Cortesa, so graceful and lovely, surpasses anything found in the movies Tracy made opposite Katharine Hepburn. Director Richard Thorpe may not be an auteur, though he does have a couple of other good movies ("Ivanhoe" and "Knights of the Round Table") among his credits. But somehow he hit it out of the park with "Malaya." If you're looking for a truly undiscovered movie gem, look no further -- "Malaya" is it.
Malaya
This film is "just ok". If it did not feature James Stewart, Spencer Tracy, and Sydney Greenstreet it would rate two stars. The film was made about four years after the end of WW 2, and seemed to be trying to recapture the spirit of "Casablanca". By the time this film was released people were beginning to focus on a new international menace. Aside from this, the story itself seemed to be thrown together. It was nice to see James Stewart, Spencer Tracy and Sydney Greenstreet in the
same film, it's too bad they did not have better material.
Viewers Also Bought
![Night People (1954)](https://s.mzstatic.com/htmlResources/F3F8/frameworks/images/p.png)
- Night People (1954)
- Nunnally Johnson
- View In iTunes
![The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse](https://s.mzstatic.com/htmlResources/F3F8/frameworks/images/p.png)
- The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse
- Anatole Litvak
- View In iTunes
![Sirocco](https://s.mzstatic.com/htmlResources/F3F8/frameworks/images/p.png)
- Sirocco
- Curtis Bernhardt
- View In iTunes
![Suez](https://s.mzstatic.com/htmlResources/F3F8/frameworks/images/p.png)
- Suez
- Allan Dwan & Otto Brower
- View In iTunes
![The Big Steal](https://s.mzstatic.com/htmlResources/F3F8/frameworks/images/p.png)
- The Big Steal
- Don Siegel
- View In iTunes
![Malaya](https://s.mzstatic.com/htmlResources/F3F8/frameworks/images/p.png)
- $9.99
- Genre: Action & Adventure
- Released: 1949
- © Malaya 1949 Turner Entertainment Co. Package Design 2009 Turner Entertainment Co. and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.