CHINA DOLL *

Thirty years before he made "China Doll", Frank Borzage won the Oscar for best direction, (the first ever awarded; he was to win a second a couple of years later). In the 1930's he was regarded as probably the best director of romantic melodramas but by the time "China Doll" came around he was all but forgotten and today this might be considered something of a 'lost' movie. It's a very conventional weepie and it suffers from having Victor Mature in the lead. He's an American air-force pilot stationed in China during the War who falls in love with, and marries, a pretty Chinese refugee. As you might expect from a director who was making movies in the twenties it's a very old-fashioned affair, (even in 1958 it must have seemed dated). The insertion of newsreel footage for the action sequences is something of a mistake and its treatment of inter-racial marriage is handled with the kind of sentimentality that would not be out of place in a D W Griffith picture. Otherwise it's tolerable enough so long as you don't go expecting a problem picture or a message movie unless, of course, the message is that love knows no boundaries. Best to just view it as a minor work from a once major director.