China Girl

With Occidental Gene Tierney playing the title role in China Girl this World War II era propaganda flick has not aged well over the decades. Certainly Anna May Wong could have and should have been cast in the lead. But Darryl F. Zanuck ever conscious of that southern market if he was going to do an interracial love story could not have a real Oriental as the lead.

George Montgomery who was one of many players backing up Tyrone Power at 20th Century Fox when Power wasn't available plays one of Power's typical hero/heel type parts. Montgomery is a newsreel cameraman and flier who gets hoodwinked by a pair of Japanese agents, Lynn Bari and Victor McLaglen, to working for them, but not for long. In fact Bari with Montgomery around has trouble keeping her mind on her mission.

Gene is as beautiful as ever and she and Montgomery would go on to do much better films. Unless you have a taste for World War II propaganda films, pass this by.