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Fred Hill (Henry Kendall) is bored with his life as a bookkeeper,
because he wants to live life rather than go to the office everyday ... so
when he is given a small fortune by a relative with the specific intent to
spend it travelling, he takes his wife Emily (Joan Barry) and off the two
are on a cruise to Singapur - where Fred catches a serious case of sea
sickness right the first day. Emily, forced to walk the deck alone, soon
makes the acquaintance of Commander Gordon (Percy Marmont), and the two
quickly fall in love. Eventually, Fred gets better again, but instead of
trying to get his wife back, he falls for the mysterious Princess (Betty
Amann), and once in Singapur, Fred and Emily act as if they hardly know
each other, and they go their seperate ways. But then, Emily learns that
Fred has walked into a trap and the Princess is a fraud, a gold digger and
a common thief ... and even though she was already set to follow Gordon
wherever he may go, she decides to ditch him and instead warn Fred not to
walk into his doom - but too late, the Princess has already ditched him,
and has taken most of his money with her. And all of a sudden, Fred and
Emily seem themselves forced to buy a passage home on a cheap steamer,
since that is all they can afford now ... and then the cheap steamer sinks
and they get locked into their cabin. But Fred and Emily are in luck,
while everyone else has jumped ship, the steamer has apparently decided to
stop sinking and is now drifiting the sea half-submerged - and our couple
makes the best of it ... until the steamer decides to continue sinking of
course, and Fred and Emily are saved by a Chinese junk just in time. Finally,
Fred and Emily arrive home, withthe spark of their love re-ignited - but
once home they immediately start bickering again. Definitely
not Hitchcock's greatest film, rather a tried-and-true romance picture
with balanced out moments of drama and comedy and some exotic settings as
an extra trimming. However, direction of this film is incredibly slick,
and the opening setpiece alone, with Henry Kendall making his way home
from work through rainy London with an umbrella that won't open including
a ride on the crammed London underground, is almost worth the admission
alone. Plus, Kendall and Joan Barry make an excellent leading couple.
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