As an actor Erich von Stroheim made some of his finest films in France. Sadly, this was not one of them and students of irony may well relish the fact that in that same year and with the same director (Christian Jacque) he made one of his finest, Les Disparus de St Agil. There was, in the 1930s, something of a vogue for films set in China - Frank Capra's The Bitter Tea Of General Yen, Lewis Milestone's The General Died at Dawn and perhaps the highest profile of them all by virtue of a Best Actress Oscar Sydney Franklin's The Good Earth. So Christian Jacque was merely following a trend and although he assembled a mouth-watering cast - Charles Vanel, Von Stroheim, Suzy Prim, Marcel Dalio and Simone Renant - for some reason he forget to hire a writer who knew his ass from third base, winding up with Oscar Paul Gilbert. There's a Boy's Own Paper element about the plot which has Charles Vanel - playing something of a cross between Pat O'Brien in Tropic Zone and Cary Grant in Only Angels Have Wings - trying to build a railroad in China under constant attack by bandits. It's a real joy to see the lovely Simone Renant who was woefully underused by the French cinema and she shares a great scene with Von Stroheim who punctuates the dialogue by slashes with his riding crop. Alas, that's about as good as it gets.
Review of Les pirates du rail
