''China Girl'' is a 1942

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

film which follows the exploits of an American

newsreel A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a cinema, newsreels were a source of current affairs, inform ...

photographer in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

and

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

against the backdrop of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. The film stars Gene Tierney, George Montgomery,

Lynn Bari Lynn Bari (born Marjorie Schuyler Fisher, December 18, 1919 – November 20, 1989) was a film actress who specialized in playing sultry, statuesque man-killers in roughly 150 films for 20th Century Fox, from the early 1930s through the 1940s. ...

and

Victor McLaglen Victor Andrew de Bier Everleigh McLaglen (10 December 1886 – 7 November 1959) was a British boxer-turned-Hollywood actor.Obituary ''Variety'', 11 November 1959, page 79. He was known as a character actor, particularly in Westerns, and made sev ...

, and was directed by

Henry Hathaway Henry Hathaway (March 13, 1898 – February 11, 1985) was an American film director and producer. He is best known as a director of Westerns, especially starring Randolph Scott and John Wayne. He directed Gary Cooper in seven films. Backgrou ...

. It is also known as ''A Yank In China'', ''Burma Road'' and ''Over The Burma Road''.

Plot summary

In Luchow, China, news cameraman Johnny Williams ( George Montgomery) is taken into custody by the Japanese military. He is offered $20,000 to take pictures of the

Burma Road The Burma Road () was a road linking Burma (now known as Myanmar) with southwest China. Its terminals were Kunming, Yunnan, and Lashio, Burma. It was built while Burma was a British colony to convey supplies to China during the Second S ...

, a vital link for Allied supply that had been built to support the Chinese war effort. He isn't interested. Johnny is put back into his cell, together with a Canadian, "Major" Bull Weed (

), who claims to be serving as a Chinese irregular. His confederate, 'Captain' Fifi (

), smuggles a gun in during a faked tempestuous farewell, and the two men escape. They rendezvous with Fifi, who says she saw a plane nearby at an abandoned airfield. Johnny, an ex- barnstormer expert at flying biplanes, pilots them all through a hail of Burmese anti-aircraft fire to safety in

Mandalay Mandalay ( or ; ) is the second-largest city in Myanmar, after Yangon. Located on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, 631km (392 miles) (Road Distance) north of Yangon, the city has a population of 1,225,553 (2014 census). Mandalay was fou ...

. Upon their arrival, he bumps into his old pal, Captain Shorty Maguire (

Myron McCormick Myron McCormick (February 8, 1908 – July 30, 1962) was an American actor of stage, radio and film. Early life and education Born in Albany, Indiana, in 1908, Walter Myron McCormick was the middle child of Walter P. and Bessie M. McCormick ...

), a mercenary pilot with the U.S. staffed "

Flying Tigers The First American Volunteer Group (AVG) of the Republic of China Air Force, nicknamed the Flying Tigers, was formed to help oppose the Japanese invasion of China. Operating in 1941–1942, it was composed of pilots from the United States ...

" defending China against the Japanese. Johnny is asked to join up, but again declines to take sides. He discovers that instead of grabbing his confiscated press credentials while fleeing Luchow, the document he picked up is something in Japanese. Bull manages to decipher just two words, and Johnny quickly loses interest upon sighting a beautiful woman nearby. Haoli Young ( Gene Tierney) has just returned from New York, where she is in school at Vassar. She tells him that her father, Dr. Young (

Philip Ahn Philip Ahn (born Pillip Ahn (), March 29, 1905 – February 28, 1978) was an American actor and activist of Korean descent. With over 180 film and television credits between 1935 and 1978, he was one of the most recognizable and prolific Asi ...

), has a home in the city, and that she is selling off the last of her family's valuable possessions to fund a mission school he runs for orphans in

Kunming Kunming (; ), also known as Yunnan-Fu, is the capital and largest city of Yunnan province, China. It is the political, economic, communications and cultural centre of the province as well as the seat of the provincial government. The headquar ...

. Johnny ends up walking there, and is introduced to him. Once alone, he presses a kiss on her, which is dispassionately received by the reserved Eurasian woman. Feeling jilted, he goes back to his hotel and picks up Fifi. When he brings Fifi back to his room, Haoli is there waiting for him. He promptly drops Fifi, only to learn from Haoli that Fifi and Bull are Japanese agents, and, by association, Johnny is suspected of being one too. Johnny realizes that he has been played by the pair, but tricks them into replacing the camera equipment he needs to photograph the Burma Road - this time for a big payday from the Western press. He then tells them to get out of Mandalay or he will turn them in as Japanese agents. Johnny stays in Mandalay, waiting to be flown over the Burma Road by his pal Shorty by tagging along on one of his solo reconnaissance flights. He meets with Haoli again and over a week of courting falls in love with her. However, just that fast she is gone with her father to Kunming, at the far end of the Burma Road. The shock sends Johnny on a bender. Bull reports back to his Japanese commander, and is ordered to retrieve the document Johnny accidentally had taken, evidently containing military plans for an upcoming campaign against the Burma Road. When Johnny wakes up in his hotel after his night out drinking Fifi is there to warn him that Bull is coming for him. She has fallen in love with him and wants him to run away with her. She tells him that Kunming will be bombed by the Japanese shortly, which instead only sends Johnny racing there after Haoli. He flies there with Shorty, arriving immediately after a terrible air raid, which killed her father. Johnny helps save some children that were trapped in the toppled building. During the rescue, Haoli is also killed, sending Johnny mad with grief. He rushes up to the top of a building, mans a machine gun, and downs a harrying Japanese fighter, belatedly beginning his personal war with the Japanese.

Cast

* Gene Tierney as Haoli Young * George Montgomery as Johnny Williams *

as Captain Fifi *

as Major Bull Weed * Alan Baxter as Flyer Bill Jones *

Sig Ruman Siegfried Carl Alban Rumann (October 11, 1884 – February 14, 1967), billed as Sig Ruman and Sig Rumann, was a German-American character actor known for his portrayals of pompous and often stereotypically Teutonic officials or villains i ...

as Jarubi *

as Shorty McGuire * Robert Blake as Chandu * Ann Pennington as Sugar Fingers, the Entertainer *

as Dr. Kai Young *

Tom Neal Thomas Carroll Neal Jr. (January 28, 1914 – August 7, 1972) was an American actor and successful amateur boxer best known for his costarring role in the critically lauded film '' Detour'', for having a widely publicized affair with actress B ...

as Captain Haynes *Paul Fung as Japanese Governor *

Lal Chand Mehra Lal Chand Mehra was an Indian character actor and academic active in Hollywood from the 1920s through the 1960s. Biography Mehra was born into a prominent Hindu family in Amritsar, India. He attended the University of Punjab as an undergradua ...

as Desk Clerk *

Kam Tong Kam Tong (December 18, 1906 – November 8, 1969) was a Chinese-American actor. He was best known for his role as Hey Boy on the CBS television series '' Have Gun, Will Travel'' and as Dr. Li in the film version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein mu ...

as Japanese Doctor

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:China Girl 1942 films 1942 drama films Films directed by Henry Hathaway Pacific War films Films with screenplays by Ben Hecht World War II films made in wartime Films set in Myanmar 20th Century Fox films American drama films Films scored by Alfred Newman Films scored by Hugo Friedhofer American black-and-white films 1940s English-language films