Kay Francis and William Powell made several films together, first at Paramount, then later at Warner Brothers in the 1930s. This is one of their best collaborations, at Warners. To say the stars enjoy a smooth and easy rapport in this picture is an understatement.Also helping the flow of this pictures is some great fluid camera work. Notice the part where the filmmakers zoom in on Miss Francis who is standing on the upper deck when the ship is docked. Though what I liked most about the story is that we don't exactly see what happened to the characters at the very end. We know they are both doomed, and cannot escape a tragic fate, but instead, we're left with this fleeting romance that took place during the span of a month and the lasting memory of it. It's a bittersweet, beautiful film.

A man condemned for murder meets a dying woman aboard a passenger liner from China to San Francisco and they fall in love. Not very promising material, despite the three and a half stars (out of four) my TV guide gave it. Sounds like a three-hankie tear jerker. It's the kind of plot that resonates more with women than with men, and it's reflected in the Users' Ratings, in which women give it a higher score in all age brackets.However, this sort of thing can be done either according to conventions or with some originality. The death of one of the lovers, or even of both, can be handled with delicacy and grace. Shakespeare did it often. And after all, as Ernest Hemingway observed, every love story is a tragedy if followed long enough because one of the lovers dies.This version of the star-crossed lovers, directed by the unimaginative Tay Garnett, doesn't add much to the formula. Garnett worked on some lively stuff before his descent into TV series. "China Seas" is fun and "Bataan" is amusing. But he was about as good as his script, and this script -- I almost wrote crypt -- sticks closely to the rules.William Powell is the most spiffy, polite, and debonair murderer you ever met. He is always in tailored three-piece suits and sometimes a tuxedo. He shares a stateroom with the detective who is taking him to his execution. He dances gracefully.Kay Francis was a popular star at Warner Brothers in the 1930s. She's stalwart okay, but her stardom is hard to understand because, unlike Powell, she didn't bring much to the party. Powell is Powell, but Kay Francis could be anyone. She doesn't have the vulgarity of, say, her contemporary, Ginger Rogers, or the elegance of Myrna Loy. Her chief virtue as an actress seems to be that she was under contract and available. And, like some television commercials or advertising jingles, whether you pay much attention or not, you come to expect them so they blend insensibly into your consciousness. "Try it, you'll like it," but "Where's the beef?" Some comedy is added to this touching but grim tale by Frank McHugh as a helpful drunk, but his high-pitched, Renfrew-like laugh is repetitive. Best acting award: Aline McMahon, the poised, morally dubious, and affecting giantess who is posing as a Baroness but is in real life the notorious Barrelhouse Betty. What a face on her! I don't mean to be too harsh on the movie. I think I can understand it's popular appeal to a relatively unsophisticated audience, but it needs a corrective added to its unusually high rating.

Two passengers aboard a ship sailing from Hong Kong to San Francisco are doomed. Joan (Kay Francis) is in delicate health and probably does not have long to live. Dan (William Powell) has been arrested for murder and is being brought to the states to be hanged. They meet in a casual way, unaware of the others problems, and fall in love. Leaving a trail of crossed stems and broken glass, they spend their passage enjoying their last moments on the earth.To be honest, I was more impressed with the secondary actors in their roles than Francis and Powell. Aline MacMahone is so regal and beautiful as the fake countess. She really knows how to put over a comedy line and she never seems overly tough. Frank McHugh has some great comic moments and provides an extra dimension to the film. Even Warren Hymer as the cop is rather good.This is a sweet romance with great photography and snappy direction, a wonderful example of early 1930s film making.

A shipboard tale of doomed lovers, ONE WAY PASSAGE manages to be interesting despite the shaky premise that lovers can meet, fall in love instantly and all the while harboring deep secrets that neither one is willing to reveal. It makes for great cinema if done properly and this version of the weepy tale almost succeeds.The biggest drawback is the need to have comedy relief in the form of FRANK McHUGH, who overplays his role as a drunken thief in cohorts with a confidence woman, ALINE MacMAHON. While MacMahone manages to make her fake Countess a believable enough character, McHugh overplays his sing-song laugh and drunken bits of humor so outrageously that the story falls apart whenever he gets extensive footage.If the tale had been confined to Miss Francis and Powell, director Tay Garnett would have gotten better results. He manages the direction very well, especially for that neat little ending which gives the story the sort of lift you'd never expect.Kay Francis is assured and lovely as the doomed woman enroute to a sanitarium and William Powell is debonair as the man who takes one glance at her and falls deeply in love, but is on his way to San Quentin on a murder charge. WARREN HYMER, as a dumb cop, is another example of the film's penchant for weak comedy relief.All it lacks is a heavy use of violins on the soundtrack to glorify the romance--but it manages to be "an affair to remember," 1930s style, despite some weaknesses.