To the Ends of the Earth (1948)

User Rating:

7.3/10   

Director:

Robert Stevenson

Writer:

Jay Richard Kennedy (story)
(more)

Release Date:

27 February 1948 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Thriller

Plot:

Based on the files of the United States Department of Treasury. Commissioner Michael Barrows is an American Government Agent...

Plot Keywords:

Drug Smuggling | Government Agent | Chase | 1940s | Opium

Cast

Dick Powell	...	Commissioner Michael Barrows
Signe Hasso	...	Ann Grant
Maylia	...	Shu Pan Wu
Ludwig Donath	...	Nicholas Sokim
Vladimir Sokoloff	...	Commissioner Lum Chi Chow
Edgar Barrier	...	Grieg
John Hoyt	...	George C. Shannon aka Gregory Shaye
Marcel Journet	...	Commissioner Lariesier
Luis Van Rooten	...	Commissioner Alberto Berado
Fritz Leiber	...	Binda Sha
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Harry J. Anslinger	...	Commissioner H.J. Anslinger (uncredited)
Jack Barnett	...	Ensign (uncredited)
Horace Brown	...	Ship's Officer (uncredited)
Peter Chong	...	Joe (uncredited)
Douglas D. Coppin	...	Ship's Officer (uncredited)
Sally Corner	...	Midgie (uncredited)
Bess Flowers	...	Ship Passenger (uncredited)
Nacho Galindo	...	Cab Driver (uncredited)
Fred Godoy	...	Pastry Cook (uncredited)
Otto Han	...	Court Clerk (uncredited)
Lou Krugman	...	Commissioner Amar Hassam (uncredited)
Henry Kulky	...	Giant Chinese Man (uncredited)
Frank Lackteen	...	Camel Driver (uncredited)
Eddie Lee	...	Chian Soo (uncredited)
James B. Leong	...	Chinese Driver (uncredited)
George J. Lewis	...	Ship's Cook Who Is Lying About Fire (uncredited)
Richard Loo	...	Commissioner Lu (uncredited)
Robert Malcolm	...	Clark (uncredited)
Frank Mayo	...	Ship's Captain (uncredited)
Walter Pietila	...	Narcotics Agent (uncredited)
Michael Raffetto	...	Professor Salim (uncredited)
Robert Riordan	...	Ship's Doctor (uncredited)
Julian Rivero	...	Cab Driver (uncredited)
Leonardo Scavino	...	Hernando (uncredited)
Mahmud Shaikhaly	...	Egyptian Policeman at Gate (uncredited)
Vernon Steele	...	Commissioner Lionel Hadley (uncredited)
Ivan Triesault	...	Naftalie Vrandstadter (uncredited)
Peter Virgo	...	Mahmoud (uncredited)
George Volk	...	Cassidy (uncredited)
Nick Volpe	...	Sketch Artist (uncredited)
Richard Wang	...	Hotel Clerk (uncredited)
Harlan Warde	...	Harry Hardt (uncredited)
Mack Williams	...	Coast Guard Captain (uncredited)
Beal Wong	...	Transportation Captain (uncredited)
Victor Sen Yung	...	Chinese Pilot (uncredited)

Directed by
Robert Stevenson

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Sidney Buchman		uncredited
Jay Richard Kennedy		story & screenplay

Produced by
Sidney Buchman	....	producer
Jay Richard Kennedy	....	associate producer

Original Music by
George Duning

Cinematography by
Burnett Guffey

Film Editing by
William A. Lyon		(as William Lyon)

Art Direction by
Stephen Goosson
Cary Odell

Set Decoration by
William Menefee
Frank Tuttle

Costume Design by
Jean Louis		(gowns)

Makeup Department
Clay Campbell	....	makeup artist
Helen Hunt	....	hair stylist

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Seymour Friedman	....	assistant director
Seymour Friedman	....	second unit director: Egypt
Ray Nazarro	....	second unit director: China

Sound Department
George Cooper	....	sound recordist

Special Effects by
Lawrence W. Butler	....	special effects

Camera and Electrical Department
Don Christie	....	still photographer (uncredited)
Richard H. Kline	....	assistant camera (uncredited)
Ray Rich	....	grip (uncredited)

Music Department
Morris Stoloff	....	musical director (as M.W. Stoloff)
Arthur Morton	....	orchestrator (uncredited)

Other crew
Gordon Griffith	....	assistant to producer
Dorothy B. Cormack	....	script supervisor (uncredited)
John Dierkes	....	technical advisor (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Kennedy-Buckman Pictures (for)
• Columbia Pictures Corporation

Distributors

• Columbia Pictures (1948) (USA) (theatrical)
• M.P.E.A. (1949) (West Germany) (theatrical)

Runtime:

109 min | West Germany:95 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Norway:16 | Finland:K-14 | USA:Approved (PCA #12390, General Audience) | Sweden:15

Company:

Kennedy-Buckman Pictures

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Grass (1999)

Despite hard-line attitudes, intrigue holds drug trafficking movie together

The idea of drug trafficking and addiction as social threats didn't emerge until the post-war years – when marijuana and heroin no longer confined themselves to urban blacks and jazz musicians. Though the subject would seem a natural for film noir, the cycle as a whole ignored it, except for odd references (Jules Amthor drugging Philip Marlowe in Murder, My Sweet, for example).

But in the late 1940s, two films took on the phenomenon directly: Port of New York and To The Ends of the Earth. Both films show the stridency that would soon come to be characteristic of the Red Scare films of the early 1950s. Port of New York, however, effectively explored its noirish milieu, while To The Ends of the Earth harks back to the international espionage pictures of wartime and the pre-war years.

Treasury agent Dick Powell witnesses the mass death of Asian `slaves,' jettisoned overboard in chains from a Japanese freighter off the coast of San Francisco. Soon, in relentless pursuit of the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, he circles the globe from Shanghai to Egypt to Cuba and finally to New York. His travels curiously intertwine with those of an American widow (Signe Hasso) and her young Chinese ward (Maylia). He uncovers a ruthless (`fanatical' is the preferred adjective) worldwide conspiracy to grow, distribute and sell opium, ultimately refined into heroin. The case doesn't crack until his ocean liner begins entry into New York harbor.

It's a good-bad movie. One of the burdens the noir cycle occasionally had to shoulder was paying homage to various principalities and duchies of the U.S. Government, generally J. Edgar Hoover's Federal Bureau of Investigation (as in Call Northside 777) or the Treasury Department (as in T-Men). Here, it's the Narcotics Bureau headed by Harry Anslinger, who graces the movie with his presence in three cameos. The requisite tone of reverence is anathema to noir, and Powell's voice-over narration drones on and on, a powerful opiate in itself.

But the nuts and bolts of the drug trade operated by a global cartel retain surprising interest, and the movie's pace picks up as it progresses, right up to a fairly shocking twist at the end. Many of its attitudes and assumptions show their age, but To The Ends of the Earth ultimately delivers its product.