Strange Cargo

Strange Cargo follows a group of men who break out of a penal colony on Devil's Island and try to reach the mainland through jungle and open water. Among the escapees is Cambreau, a mysterious stranger no one remembers seeing before, who seems to anticipate what awaits them. As the fugitives travel, he pushes each of them to confront the crimes in their past and the choices still ahead. The thief André Verne, the most determined of the group, is pursued by Julie, a woman he met shortly before the escape. Frank Borzage directed the film for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, working from a screenplay by Lawrence Hazard, George Oppenheimer and Lesser Samuels. Borzage also produced alongside Joseph L. Mankiewicz. It sits between Mannequin and Moonrise in Borzage's filmography as his sixth film in the chronological listing that begins with 7th Heaven. Clark Gable plays Verne and Joan Crawford plays Julie, with Ian Hunter as Cambreau, Peter Lorre as M'sieu Pig, Paul Lukas as Hessler and Albert Dekker as Moll. Thirty-seven cast members are credited. On IMDb the film holds a critics' rating of 7.2 out of 10 from eight reviews, while on TMDB it has a rating of 7 out of 10 from 56 votes, indicating that critics rated it somewhat more favorably than the audience did, though both scores point to a generally positive reception.