For Dorothy Burgess fans (hopefully, I'm first in line here), Out of Singapore (1932) (available on a very good Alpha DVD) is an absolute must-see. Although she makes a late entrance, Dorothy does a dance number that will knock your socks off. And Miriam Seegar is no slouch in the beauty department either. Alas, Wallace Beery plays the villain with such patent wickedness, we wonder how the "good" boys, and most particularly Miss Seegar, could possibly be taken in by him. I also thought that Jimmy Aubrey way overdid the "comic" relief, even though his actions do enable Fred "Snowflake" Toones to get his teeth into a first-class dramatic role as a particularly vicious cook. Indeed the movie is overloaded with evil characters. We haven't even mentioned Montagu Love and Leon Wong (who escapes retribution, would you believe?), but the film is directed with such a sure hand by 1920's serial king, Charles Hutchison, that these quibbles only surface after "The End" is flashed on the screen

The film begins with a ship's captain agreeing to take on Woolf Barstow as his first mate. This is unusual because Barstow has a horrible reputation as ship after ship on which he served sank! However, the captain seems to think that perhaps it's all just due to bad luck. However, through the course of the film you see that Barstow is indeed an evil man--a guy who isn't above murdering his crew in order to commit insurance fraud! Nice guy, huh? However, his lady friend (Dorothy Burgess) is intent on stopping him one way or another--and WOW does she pick an unusual way to do this!! In many ways, watching Noah Beery (brother of Wallace Beery, by the way) is a lot like watching a live action version of Bluto from the Popeye cartoons. His voice is nearly the same and he behaves much like Bluto would--with the over-active libido, streak of violence and the like! Because of this, it's really hard to take the film very seriously. The same could also be said for the ending--though it's very, very exciting to watch. Additionally, viewers might be surprised and enjoy watching the Pre-Code aspects of the film--such as the very seductive dancing of Burgess (such dancing would have probably not been allowed post-1934 when the new Production Code was enacted).

This film is short and sweet, and Top stars Noah Beery as a baddie. Dorothy Burgess is fiery and sensuous, and Miriam Seegar fine as the "good" girl. Typical entertaining low-budget programmer probably played small houses or the second half of double bills, but today is an painless way to spend an hour seeing some stars from the early sound era who are all but totally forgotten today. (The poverty row studios seemed to specialize in offering decent parts to players whose luster had dimmed a bit after the initial boom of the first talkies). I find more and more films from poverty row which are entertaining, even some with production values which are pretty good considering their low budgets. That so many have survived at all is amazing since these were made by companies that long ago went out of business and the films were thought to have no value beyond their initial releases. There is a satisfying ending to this film. I won't spoil it for you, but try to see this when you can't decide on anything else to watch. I think you'll like it.

The captain of a ship takes ill not long after hiring Noah Beery Sr, a man with a bad reputation- every ship he's been on for the last three years has sunk burned or disappeared. Of course Beery is behind the illness, which puts the pretty captain's daughter in peril. Another pre-code melodrama with a great deal of exposed female flesh and suggestions of things that nice people didn't do. This is just an okay film. The problem is that Beery is so clearly the bad guy you can't believe that anyone would be so stupid as to hire him. I mean Long John Silver was a bad guy but at least he could hide it, Beery can't and it sinks the movie. It also doesn't help that the film's plot ultimately makes no sense, there are just too many twists and turns that none of it comes off as anything other than contrived. Not really bad, but not really worth your time and effort.