China Doll
Studio: MGM
WorkNameSort: China Doll
Many of director Frank Borzage’s films are critically revered, a couple of them won him Best Director Oscars, but few have been seen outside revival houses and the occasional TCM showing. 1958’s China Doll ‘ his second-to-last film and his first in 10 years after being blacklisted ‘ probably isn’t the best place to start. Just the fourth Borzage film to be released on DVD, China Doll is the sentimental tale of a womanizing Air Force captain (Victor Mature) who, while posted in China in World War II, drunkenly purchases a poverty-stricken girl to be his housekeeper. She doesn’t speak a word of English, but the faithful servant warms the brutish officer’s heart, making him see the error of his ways. But the marriage, baby and picket-fence life is soon upset by tragedy. The battle scenes, what few of them there are, have an elemental intensity, and the story is mildly enjoyable until it veers into the maudlin. It’s an unexceptional studio film, and somehow, the casting director got away with casting people who appear to be younger than Mature to play his character’s parents.
This article appears in May 2-8, 2007.