Interesteg What makes it different from others?

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

JohnHowardReid SYNOPSIS: WW2 navy man returns to Singapore to take up his old occupation of pearl smuggling. However, it turns out that the wife he thought killed in a Japanese air raid is still alive, though suffering from amnesia — and now married to someone else!NOTES: Re-made as "Istanbul" (1957) with Errol Flynn and Cornell Borchers.COMMENT: This silly story is — incredibly — mostly the work of Seton I. Miller (The Dawn Patrol, Bullets or Ballots, Marked Woman,The Sea Hawk, The Black Swan, Ministry of Fear, Two Years Before the Mast). It manages to combine a melodramatic tale of pearl smuggling with an equally incredible tale of re-marriage and amnesia. The way the writers stretch moral values and all sense of what is believable to bring about the anticipated happy ending, is a miracle of pre- liberal censorship.Director John Brahm handles this tosh quite seriously, as if it were Graham Greene at his moodily moralistic best. The players certainly way out-class their shoddy material. Ava Gardner, exquisitely gowned and beautifully photographed, moves with customary grace through the attractive sets; whilst Porter Hall supplies a delightful impersonation of a tourist/plumber, and the ubiquitous Philip Ahn makes a surprise appearance as a barman!Other technical credits are equally first-rate. But what a pity such a pleasing music score is squandered on this sorry concoction of story and character clichés!Still, we're probably being a bit hard on Singapore. Any film with Ava is certainly well worth seeing. If you're not too critical, this one will doubtless give good entertainment.

mark.waltz A sudden World War II bombing interrupts the engagement plans of pearl smuggler Fred MacMurray and the beautiful Ava Gardner, whom MacMurray assumes is dead. Five years later, the war is over, and MacMurray returns to Singapore on another smuggling scheme, and finds Gardner, alive, but not well, now married to a wealthy plantation owner who adores her and can't quite let her go. MacMurray gets deeper into danger with nefarious men (lead by portly Thomas Gomez) desperate to get the hands on the pearls they believe MacMurray took five years before, and as Gardner begins to recall her past, she becomes involved in a devious plot to bring MacMurray down.Every single archetype of "Casablanca" is there from the brooding anti-hero to the unavailable heroine he loves to the noble husband, and even to the smarmy villains. Richard Haydn's noble Deputy Commissioner is a duplicate of Claude Rains, and there is even a Peter Lorre like creep named Pepe (Lorre's character name in "All Through the Night", another Bogart adventure). This film was definitely manipulated to create sentiment, not only for the torn-apart lovers but the noble husband (Roland Culver) as well. Porter Hall and Spring Byington are tossed in a lame attempt for comic relief. In the film's relatively short running time, you can count all of the parallels, and when you get to the airport-set finale, try not to gag by the ridiculousness of that.

bkoganbing On her way up the Hollywood ladder MGM loaned Ava Gardner out for this potboiler adventure film Singapore. As the area suggests romance and mystery just the title alone would bring in a few customers at the box office. In fact Singapore still is an area of intrigue though now enjoying a prosperity that could not have been imagined when this film was made.Fred MacMurray and Ava Gardner are a pair of star crossed lovers who marry just before the Japanese invade and occupy the city. MacMurray has a fortune in pearls that he stashes and while trying to retrieve them the bombs are dropped and he thinks Gardner is killed. He barely gets away in his schooner with other refugees without pearls and without Ava who he married just before the attack.After the war Fred's back to get his pearls, but he sees Ava now married to Roland Culver and with a bad case of amnesia. And he's got other problems as villains Thomas Gomez and George Lloyd want them as well. Singapore was created on the Universal back lot and didn't have the advantage that its remake Istanbul had with color and location shooting. But they did make a better film though not all that much better. It's been compared to Casablanca by many to the detriment of Singapore. But those letters of transit that will allow two people, which two to escape and join the fight against Nazism are a much bigger prize than Fred's pearls. You care a lot more about Bogey, Bergman, and Henreid than the triangle here. And this film didn't have As Time Goes By either.MacMurray and Gardner also don't have the chemistry that Bogey and Bergman do. But that's not fair, who else ever did?Singapore is your routine potboiler another film MacMurray was grabbing for the paycheck after he left Paramount. As for Ava after The Killers and The Hucksters it was not a step down, but just keeping her on the same career plateau as before.

drystyx This is a fairly decent yarn about a fortune hunting American in the days when Americans weren't considered ugly.It has the elements of film noir and mystery, though not really a lot of mystery. It is the story of a man returning to Singapore from America to find illegal valuables he hid.Many of the characters are a bit cliché, but it is an entertaining film, so it rates fairly high. The main nitpick that brings it down to a 6 is the ending, which is dragged out for a Hollywood cliché. The movie should have ended about nine minutes before it did. The way it ended was not only unrealistic and Hollywood, but just completely anticlimactic.