Strange Cargo

Strange Cargo is a 1940 American romantic drama film directed by Frank Borzage and starring Clark Gable and Joan Crawford in a story about a group of fugitive prisoners from a French penal colony. The adapted screenplay by Lawrence Hazard was based upon the 1936 novel, Not Too Narrow, Not Too Deep, by Richard Sale. The film was produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer; it was the eighth and last film pairing of Crawford and Gable, and the first Gable picture released in the wake of Gone with the Wind. The supporting cast includes Ian Hunter and Peter Lorre. Plot Julie (Crawford), a cynical, world-weary cafe entertainer (and prostitute) in a town near the Devil’s Island (French Guiana) penal colony, encounters André Verne (Clark Gable), a prisoner, on the wharf where he is hiding. He grabs her ankle and threatens her—she will be thrown off the island if she is found consorting with a prisoner. André Verne's absence is not noticed because a man in a prisoner’s uniform (Ian Hunter) joins the returning work crew, making the count correct. Verne goes to Julie's room because he wants a woman. Julie wants none of him and threatens to turn him in, but she doesn’t get the chance because M'sieu Pig (Peter Lorre) has already reported him; he is found in Julie’s room and returned to prison. Julie is banished from the island and has no money for passage. The Pig wants her to stay, but she tells him nothing could ever make her so desperate that she would allow him to touch her. She goes to Marfeu (Bernard Nedell) for help and ends up a held prisoner in his shack. Prison warden Grideau (Frederic Worlock) is mystified by the fact that the work gang count was correct even though Verne was outside the prison. Grideau thinks that Verne has potential, unlike most of the prisoners but fears the man is doomed. It is only a matter of time before he kills someone. In the prison barracks, the stranger, whose name is Cambreau, begins to show the qualities that begin to define him as a mysterious, supernatural character: his anticipation of events (including weather), his knowledge of people, his physical endurance, his readiness with appropriate quotes from scripture, even his unexplained possession of money when needed. In a conversation with Verne, he offers the idea, central to the film, that “every man has God in his heart.” Verne finds this wildly funny, pointing to all the wonderful examples of God around them.