Hong Kong

Trailed by a game little cast, the stars meander around against some faked, pleasantly hued Chinese backgrounds, in a story by Winston Miller involving a war orphan and a valuable statuette. Had Mr. Miller's idea been tightened and enacted like a house afire, the result might have been a mildly satisfactory little adventure yarn. But Lewis R. Foster's pedantic direction enshrouds the whole thing in deadly familiarity, harmless though it may be. Mr. Reagan plays an ex-G:I: drifter in his own solid citizen style, laboriously drawling every tattered slang utterance in the books. The casting of gorgeous Miss Fleming as a mission teacher is hard to swallow, even with a jawful of popcorn, but the lady acquits herself with cryptic restraint. Nigel Bruce and Lady May Lawford fill in as a pair of bumbling British colonials. A sparkling little Chinese lad named Danny Chang, as the orphan, has all the luck, being either too young to know what is happening or just too gentlemanly to say.