SpecialsTarget Disturbing yet enthralling

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

blanche-2 I liked "Thunder in the East," a 1952 release for this film, made in 1949.This film looks to have been made on a smallish budget and takes place in the first years of India's freedom from Britain. A man named Steve Gibbs (Alan Ladd) flies in a plane filled with armaments in the Ghandahar province in order to sell them. However, the Prime Minister, Singh (Charles Boyer) wants to achieve a peaceful resolution with the leader of the guerrillas, Khan.The British living in India are delusional, not realizing that the guerrillas are about to attack. The ones who do get out end up dead en route. Gibbs meets Joan Willoughby (Deborah Kerr) and her parson father (Cecil Kellaway) and manages to meet the maharajah, who defers to the Prime Minister and then leaves the country for the winter.Gibbs offers his plane, but he gouges the people wanting to leave, which angers Joan, who was falling for him. Now she turns against him and no one will give into what they call blackmail. They gather at the palace, waiting for the guerrillas to attack, and hope that the Prime Minister will let them use the guns he has.There are a couple of problems with this film. One is the casting of Charles Boyer and his French accent and heavy makeup. I have to say, he was wonderful. He was an underrated actor, but miscast.The script has a few clichés, particularly the hard core businessman falling for a sweet, altruistic woman. Nevertheless, it certainly held my interest.I read some complaints about the ending, which for me was the best part of the film. Very dramatic and very exciting. As far as the Prime Minister's beliefs, he was a human being and acted on an injustice viscerally. His idealism went out the window, and that's okay. That's what happens sometimes.Alan Ladd did a good job in a Bogart-type role. I never considered him much of an actor, but that monotone type of line reading works fine in this type of part, as it did in his film noirs. Deborah Kerr was lovely as a good woman who prides herself on her independence and fearful of losing it.The film was probably trying to make the point that Gandhi was an idiot, and that following his principles wasn't a good idea. Not sure I'd conclude that in all cases. Maybe in this one.

secondtake Thunder in the East (1952)If you like old Golden Age Hollywood movies you've seen a bunch of this kind of film by now. An American is overseas in an exotic place where people of various nationalities are finding various ways of surviving, some legit and some underground. The cross of cultures, and the rising of a new situation that threatens them all, is the basis of high drama and lots of new material. Think "The Letter" with Bette Davis, or much closer to the point, "Casablanca" with Humphrey Bogart.In that mold we have Alan Ladd as a gun runner, an American with no loyalties except money. The place is Ghandahar, a province in northern India, a country recently independent but with lot of Brits hanging on to their old ways (and made fun of a little). We presume this to be a Hindu controlled area, because there is a Muslim insurgency in the mountains. It's set in the 1947 and what politically is about to happen (and the audience in 1952 knows this) is the big breakup of the new India into two countries, with Muslim Pakistan born in the north.So Ladd drops into this tiny province with a plane full of armaments. He aims to sell them to the Hindu leader, played by Charles Boyer. But Boyer is a pacifist deep down and he refuses. By then it's too late to leave, and the insurgents are about to arrive, and worst and best of all, Ladd meets a woman, played by Deborah Kerr, who happens to be blind.This is both great stuff and also in danger of feeling contrived. For one thing, Ladd is no Bogart, and sometimes I think he thinks he is (he plays the hardboiled type who doesn't take advice from anyone). But the movie is no "Casablanca," either. It is however very good, with the romance and the military takeover jolting over rough territory. Kerr is a bright light here, a British woman born there and in love with the place, and with a better sense that the region is not theirs. Even so, she doesn't want to leave. And guess who has a plane?Well even that goes wrong (badly), and tensions build. The existence of the guns is an ongoing problem. Night comes. Their situation looks dire. And then, in a crazy Warner Bros. style ending that is worth every minute leading up to it, we have this amazing, ambiguous, catastrophic rising to action. It might not be reasonable, but then again, in a situation like this, it might be exactly what you'd expect. Or that there would be no choice. Either way, the camera shots in the final scene are terrific and surprising stuff.The director here is Charles Vidor, one of the long lived mainstays who made a lot of really good films but maybe no stellar ones (the best is probably the noir set in South America, "Gilda"). Vidor seems to be drawing from well used and still workable clichés to make the story vivid cinematically. It's actually a good ride. I happen to see that TCM viewers give it a very high composite score. I think this would be a terrible entry into older movies, but if you are already a fan, it's much better than you might expect. I give it a go.Oh, I realized after re-reading all this that the mythical Ghandahar is an homage to the pacifist Indian leader, Ghandi...a nice addition.

bkoganbing Paramount must have had some trepidations about Thunder in the East as it was made in 1949 and held up in release for three years. Nat King Cole recorded the theme from Thunder in the East, a song called The Ruby and the Pearl three years earlier. It's quite a beautiful ballad and perfectly suited for Cole's voice, it's the best thing to come out of this routine action film.Alan Ladd plays an arms dealer selling weaponry for the best price he can exact from the various sides in the Indian Civil War where the boundaries of India and Pakistan were settled in a lot of blood spilled. He's in Ghandahar province which has its rebel Moslem faction. He falls for Deborah Kerr the blind daughter of missionary Cecil Kellaway.Ladd's got a silly playboy maharajah in Charles Lung to deal with and a prime minister for Ghandahar who is a disciple of Gandhi's non-violence philosophy. Charles Boyer as the prime minister doesn't want the weapons, but the rebel Moslems want them if for no other reason than to keep them out of Hindu hands and if they can't buy them, they'll take them by whatever means necessary.The film tries to be a critique of Gandhi's non-violence code, but it doesn't rise above being an action/adventure story. The ending is a rather abrupt one and unconvincing. Still fans of the star players will probably like it.

lorenellroy Thunder in the East is set in 1947 India ,immediately after being granted independence by Britain ,and in particular events are centred on the state of Ghandahar which is being menaced by brigands,well armed and with a political agenda. The Maharajah of the state is a dilettante playboy ,and his main adviser,played by a blacked up Charles Boyer,is a pacifist who will not countenance using force to resist the incursions of the brigands. Thus when arms entrepreneur Alan Ladd seeks to sell him guns and munitions to resist the enemies of the state he refuses and impounds the cargo.Ladd's existence is further complicated by his falling in love with Deborah Kerr,a blind British woman .who is caught up in the fate of the British community which is particularly under threat from the rebels. Things build to a final siege of the main hotel where the British dig in to resist Performances are okay although white actors blacked up now seems embarrassing ,and there is a touch of Casablanca about the storyline -cynical hero falling in love with an idealistic woman;contending political forces and a smarmy villain.Its nowhere near as good since script and cast are inferior .Not bad but too stolid to be exceptional.