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By the time the pirates reach her the Kin Lung is wallowing in a ferment of plots, counterplots, scandals and frustrations. Captain Gaskell has broken with China Doll to become engaged to Sybil (Rosalind Russell). China Doll, chagrined, has stolen his key to the ship's armory, given it to MacArdle. The owner of the line (C. Aubrey Smith) has delivered a short talk on the lure of the Orient. During the typhoon a lashed steamroller has rolled loose on deck, crushing coolies until, owing to the cowardice of his third officer (Lewis Stone), Captain Gaskell is forced to rechain it almost singlehanded. When the pirates board the Kin Lung they first attach a Malay boot to Captain Gaskell's right foot.* Says oily MacArdle: "Why, it's breaking my heart to see you suffer like this. I can't bear it. . . . Please tell them where it is. . . ." Then the pirates begin reaching into the ladies' dresses for their jewels. Routed at last, when the disgraced third officer heroically redeems himself, the pirates disappear leaving the Kin Lung much better off than it was before. MacArdle is exposed as an amiable human rat. Captain Gaskell seems better disposed toward China Doll. The drunken novelist is sneering at the barkeep.
As an indication of what the winter of 1935-36 will hold for cinemaddicts, China Seas, a first rate melodrama, lively, funny, and convincing, is highly reassuring. Its popularity at its premiere last week seemed to presage box-office records and a banner year, as usual, for the most ingratiating member of its cast, Jean Harlow.
As the foremost U. S. embodiment of sex appeal, Jean Harlow's chief qualifications are her hair and her good humor. Her hair brought her to the attention of Howard Hughes in 1929 and thus launched a career which has done more than any other one thing to keep beauty parlors busy through Depression. Her humor, overlooked by Hughes, was recognized by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to whom he sold her contract for $60,000. Since Theda Bara retired, sex appeal on the U. S. screen has been a quality largely identified with comedy. Beginning with Red Headed Woman and continuing with Red Dust, Dinner at Eight and Bombshell, Jean Harlow has paradoxically made herself a symbol for the kind of allure which her appearance naturally suggests by ridiculing it. She was blithely hailed as a femme fatale until the suicide of her second husband, Paul Bern, made this designation seem shockingly impolite. Since then, fan magazines have shifted their viewpoint and painted "the real Jean Harlow" as a cross between a camp cook and an English sheepdog, notable mainly for her skill in making salad dressings and the difficulty she experiences with shampoos. All this is obviously rubbish, the more inexcusable since it is clearly contradicted by the facts of her career.