It's confession time here on Hot Toasty Rag: When I rented this movie, I misread the title and thought it was called East of Sinatra. Needless to say, I was very excited-and very surprised when there was absolutely no mention of Ol' Blue Eyes throughout the entire movie!The real plot follows Jeff Chandler to a Malaysian mine as he deals with the natives, who are pretty tame for the most past, two women throwing themselves at him, and a king who's more than willing to cooperate and be his friend. In other words, East of Sumatra is a pretty boring movie. Anthony Quinn plays King Kiang-feel free to roll your eyes as he adds another ethnicity to his roster-and while he extends his arm in friendship, the fly in the ointment is his girlfriend Suzan Ball, who for some reason is more interested in Jeff Chandler than Tony. I know, feel free to roll your eyes again. Unless you like really cheesy, boring 1950s movies that randomly take place in the jungle in a vain attempt to recapture the thrill of Red Dust, you probably won't like this movie. I'm sure I don't have to tell you how disappointed I was.

Whether its the heat that Jeff Chandler lets off or the poison darts, this is quite an intense island adventure complete with sarong wearing half caste young girl (Suzane Bal), an evil island king (Anthony Quinn) and unruly natives with poisoned darts. No Dorothy Lamour or Maria Montez in sight, this starts off on the mainland where Chandler proves himself tough enough to stand up to pretty much anything. That gives his boss (John Sutton) the confidence to put him on a job in the south seas where he finds more than he bargained for. Unintentional flirting with the south seas beauty makes King Quinn mighty jealous, and this leads to a war between Quinn, his natives and Chandler and his crew, which includes his newly arrived boss and his horny girlfriend (Marilyn Maxwell), adding more fuel to this fiery rectangle.Hokey but enjoyable, the sexuality of this film is quite intense, with Chandler and Quinn equally seductive, even if Quinn is obviously ruthless in his determination. Maxwell is your typical blonde B girl, not at all faithful to boyfriend Sutton, something dealt with surprisingly at the end. It's inconsequential fluff, but all the more entertaining for the way it draws you in even when silly and camp. A young Scatman Crothers stands out as one of the crew. The presence of one slang using native adds stereotypical humor, amusing but fortunately not overplayed. I am curious about the troubled worker in the opening scene who uses a steam shovel to toss heavy debris on the workers below, cut out of the story and not given much explanation other than "he's at it again."

East Of Sumatra was one of those potboiler stories that Universal cast Jeff Chandler in while he was under contract there. The story is a romantic pentagon set in the exotic location of an Indonesian jungle with all the men acting with exceedingly high testosterone levels.John Sutton who is engaged to Marilyn Maxwell without knowing she was once Chandler's girl becomes Chandler's boss on a new job set for one of the thousands of islands in the Indonesian archipelago where the rule of Achmed Sukarno hasn't gotten hold yet. The island is ruled by King Anthony Quinn who has a special girl in Suzan Ball. But Ball is checking out Chandler and the rest of his crew as they start a tin mining operation.No need to go into all the details, but it all blows up quite nicely with the natives making war against Chandler and his crew with Sutton stupidly bringing Maxwell along into harm's and Jeff's way. It ends in tragedy for one of the five principal cast members. The film is based on a Louis L'Amour story which since he wrote westerns may have begun as that and Budd Boetticher directed East of Sumatra. Both these guys should have stuck to the American west.

Jeff Chandler always impressed me as having two expressions: one, as one overdue for a visit to the toilet and the other, relief at just having been. This film, which is thin on story, is another tough guy going to tame the wild elements, story. Chandler is at his hammy best, Marilyn Maxwell is always a delight to look at and Tony Quinn plays a Malay chief. This is not the most entertaining film you'll encounter on the late show but it has some pleasant moments about a time when tough guys could wrest fortunes out of the jungle without a worry in the world about pollution, colonial exploitation or globalization, and just making sure, they get the girl.