BLOOD ON THE SUN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 361, 24 May 1946, Page 28

BLOOD ON THE SUN

| (United Artists)

HIS is a remarkably good melodrama, all about an American editor of an Eng-lish-language newspaper in pre-war Tokyo who discovered

| Premier Baron Tanaka's plan for world conquest and smuggied the document out of Japan. Though the film does not toe the historical fine all the way, and indeed frequently wavers well astray, at least the basis of the story is factual, for there really was a Tanaka Memorial, a plan for the conquest of Manchukuo which its author promptly repudiated when it was published in 1927, four years before the conquest of Manchukuo took place. The appearance of James Cagney in the starring role is rather a surprise, for he is not, and does not behave like, the conventional Hollywood newspaper hero. He does not wear his hat on the back of his head, especially in the presence of women, chew gum, put his feet on the desk, or do ‘his most brilliant writing when drunk. Yet if the choice of star is surprising it is none the less welcome; nobody could make the editor a probable person, for the script writer has given him several of the attributes of Flash Gordon; but Cagney, an actor ideally combining brains and brawn, toughness and sensibility, makes him a more convincing figure than probably anybody else on the screen could have been. Cagney’s timing is perfect; as he rocks almost imperceptibly from his toes to his heels there is a suggestion ofcoiled energy, ready to be released like a spring; he acts his way through the part as if he were an expert boxer, alert

and tense, not merely in the sequences demanding actual physical agility (e.g. the judo fights with the Japanese and the man-hunt through the docks), but also in his quieter moments, when he is making love to Sylvia Sidney or pitting his wits against the Imperial Secret Police. It is this nervy, delicately-controlled but powerful performance that gives Blood on the Sun its distinction as a melodrama and contributes immeasurably to the suspense. It is, in fact, a performance of far finer quality than the story deserves. But the director also has a contribution to make, using his cameras and his cutting scissors to build up an atmosphere of sinister menace, and finally releasing the tension in a very exciting and convincing climax of physical violence which seems designed to prove that an American newspaperman is more than a match for any number of wily Orientals. Silvia Sidney, in her first appearance for a long time, adds something to the picture too, and so do a handful of "bit" players with’ their eyes pulled aslant and other make-up. added to: resemble such notable villains as Tanaka, Tojo, and Yamamoto. Miss Sidney portrays a half-American, half-Chinese girl of great beauty who is playing a game of patriotic double-cross so complicated and subtle that its purpose never seems quite clear to anybody, let alone the audience. At the end she comes out on the side of the Occidental Angels and against the Black Dragons, carrying the precious document out of Japan- but not before Baron Tanaka has ceremoniously committed hara-kiri, a newspaperman and his wife, and the aged antimilitarist Prince Tatsugi have been

foully murdered, and the hero has chopped down half the Japanese police force with his bare hands. This leaves him considerably battered but with still enough breath left to get the last word -which he does with an unusual exposition of the Christian doctrine of torgiveness. Blood on the Sun is a good film-or more strictly a good melodrama-in spite of several gaps in the continuity which in one place amount to a yawning chasm. The Japanese have discovered that their beautiful agent (Miss Sidney) is double-crossing them; she is shut up in her hotel apartment, her telephone is cut off, and-she is promised a particularly lingering death as punishment. When the hero visits her apartment some days after, the place is empty. But a couple of scenes or so later there | she is safe and sound, complete with her secret document, hiding out.in another part of the city-but with absolutely no explanation offered for her getaway. Even this clever young woman couldn’t talk herself out of such a nasty situation as easily as that; and I find it hard to believe that the director simply went to sleep at this point, especially as the fate of another character, a treacherous American, is similarly left hanging in mid-air. The explanation must be that somewhere ._ between Hollywood and here a clumsy cut was for some reason made in the film: