It was great to see another little remembered Gable film made before he went off to war. When he was paired with Rosalind Russell in "China Seas", they met in Hong Hong and traveled by ship to Singapore. Here, they meet in Bombay and travel by ship to Hong Kong, under quite different circumstances, as fugitive jewel thieves. In general form, this film reminds me of the later "The Big Steal", a chase thriller-screwball romantic comedy combo in an exotic locale, involving a man and woman, unknown to each other, looking for the same thing. Toward the end, it turns into a forerunner of "The Great Imposter", with Gable successfully fooling the British Hong Kong garrison into believing he is a British officer, who happens to be passing through. This gets him into more hot water than he bargained for, as the Japanese invade Hong Kong(as they actually did less than a year later!). Peter Lorre doesn't fool anyone as the supposedly Chinese captain of the ship taking the thieves to Hong Kong. This is mostly Gable's film. Sometimes, I wondered if I was looking at a deglamourized Heddy Lamarr instead of Rosalind Russell. All in all, an entertaining, if silly, romp, with Gable still looking in peak form and seeming to enjoy himself.
Review of They Met in Bombay
