In Paris, Thérèse du Flos (Ann Harding) is on the verge of marrying Cpt Verlaine (Melvyn Douglas) when he is sent over to French Indochina to command a penitenciary in the jungle. After much debating, she decides to join him there. After a long journey by boat and through the jungle, she arrives in this hell hole. Verlaine is slowly disintegrating, drinking himself into oblivion. With Thérèse's arrival, he gets better. Alas, he cannot get transfered to a better place. When their old friend, Cpt Baudoin (Adolphe Menjou) comes to visit, the situation worsen. Baudoin asks Thérèse to leave with him...
Tay Garnett managed to bring out the claustrophobia and sweltering heat of the Indochina jungle with the RKO-Pathé tight budget. His cinematographer, Lucien Andriot did a brilliant job. This is probably the most amazing dolly shot I have ever seen in such an early talkie feature. None of the movements are there to be 'decorative'. It always highlights the characters' conflict and unrest. Thérèse's arrival in the penitenciary offers a circular view (360 ° shot) of the courtyard. She sees first the guillotine, the trademill were convicts turn a watermill, some soldiers watching fighting cocks and the shacks... Another amazing tracking shot, during Thérèse and Verlaine's traditional wedding ceremony with the local people highlights their isolation in the middle of the crowd: the only Europeans in this part of the jungle.
I was struck by Melvyn Douglas' excellent performance as the distraught Verlaine. He is not as stagey as in As You Desire Me and looks more like the accomplished actor he was in all his great future Lubitsch features. Ann Harding has a chance to escape from her usual films to a totally different atmosphere. In a way, it's reminiscent of Condemned: she is also the wife of a warden in a French colony. Menjou has little to do, but, is polished as usual.
There are a lot of very good little touches in the editing as well when Ann drinks some water on the boat that takes her to the jungle and it dissolves into Melvyn dinking heavily from a 'musical' bottle.
In a way, the film is probably quite honest in its desciption of the colonials' and native people's relationship. It's entirely based on a supposed 'prestige' (superiority?) of the white race aided heavily by brutal force (the colonial army). But, there is a strong feeling of unrest among the local people. And Melvyn's last stand (whipping them into their place) looks like he isn't going to order them around much longer....