White Woman (1933)

Director:

Stuart Walker

Writers:

Frank Butler (story)
Samuel Hoffenstein (writer)

Release Date:

10 November 1933 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A nightclub singer marries the rich owner of a rubber plantation. When she returns with him to his estate in Malaysia...

Plot Keywords:

Rubber | Racism | Africa | Beautiful Woman | Jungle

Cast

Carole Lombard	...	Judith Denning
Charles Laughton	...	Horace H. Prin
Charles Bickford	...	Ballister
Kent Taylor	...	David von Elst
Percy Kilbride	...	Jakey
James Bell	...	Hambly
Charles Middleton	...	Fenton (as Charles B. Middleton)
Claude King	...	C.M. Chisholm
Ethel Griffies	...	Mrs. Chisholm
James Dime	...	Vaegi
Marc Lawrence	...	Connors

Runtime:

68 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

One of over 700 Paramount Productions, filmed between 1929 and 1949, which were sold to MCA/Universal in 1958 for television distribution, and have been owned and controlled by Universal ever since.

Movie Connections:

Remade as Island of Lost Men (1939)

Soundtrack:

He's a Cute Brute

Laughton as a cockney river trader in Malaya

It's probably worth mentioning that this jungle islands "farrago", as Simon Callow calls it in his biography of Laughton, is set in Malaya, not Africa. In those days it was still part of the British Empire, which accounts for Laughton's cockney accent. In addition, at the dinner party on Laughton's river-boat (about 20 minutes into the film), his new wife (Carole Lombard) says she'd like to learn Malay.

This was the last of the handful of films which Laughton made for Paramount during 1932-33 under a short-term contract (the others being Devil and the Deep, Sign of the Cross, If I Had a Million, and Island of Lost Souls). Callow thinks Laughton's acting is both original and preposterous: "giggling and teasing and play-acting, screwing up his eyes, scratching his head, pulling at his moustache and using a whole battery of tics."

It's certainly preposterous that the Carole Lombard character would ever have considered marrying such an unpleasant person as Laughton makes him, so this fatally weakens the story. On the other hand, she has little choice, having been ostracised by the British community who would like to see the back of her. The mysterious suicide of her husband has forced her to earn a living singing in shady bars, so Laughton's proposal of marriage, coupled with his claim that he owns a great deal of land up river, offers a way out of her predicament. It's only when she arrives at his house-boat that she realises what she's got herself into, and seeks solace with some other, rather more pleasant, male members of the cast.

Laughton's Horace Prin has never been considered in the same breath as his Henry VIII, Captain Bligh, or Quasimodo. Even so, it is still probably worth seeing, if only as an example of his early Hollywood work.