Shanghai 1932. Chester Morris is pipe-smoking doctor who has signed on to the passenger ship the S.S. Arcturus. It's run above decks by the Captain played by Hobbes and below decks by Chief Engineer McLaglen (his character's name is "Crusher" McKay). Barrie is the nurse in love with Morris, but also pursued by big lug McLaglen. Then comes a cholera epidemic below decks. Cholera, of course, involves massive diarrhea, but here the actors just clutch their side and keel over. Eventually even McLaglen gets it. But of course Doctor Morris saves the day, gets the girl, and the ship makes it to port. But there is also an interesting, rather odd, sociological point of view to all this. The passengers are never told about the cholera, and the the above decks crew treat the below decks staff with contempt. Guilfoyle plays one of the "below deckers" who rails on about the despised "haves" living comfortably above. In fact, when the crew members die of cholera they aren't even given burial at sea, they're burned in the ship's furnaces! And at the end of the voyage the passengers leave complaining of the customer service with haughty contempt. This film certainly likes to stick it to anyone who doesn't shovel coal. But there is plenty of snappy dialogue and the inimitable over-sized presence of McLaglen to recommend it.
Review of Pacific Liner
