One Way Passage (1932):Star-crosssed Shipboard Romance leads to remakes

Sometime as a classic movie fan, films come to you in sometimes surprising and funny ways. I was watching an episode of the Love Boat on TV with my dad one day, and the episode featured John Forsythe of Dynasty and Charlie's Angels fame, and Ursula Andress (Bond girl "Honey Rider" in Dr. No) as a man and woman who meet in Shanghai and fall in love. The catch, however, is that he is about to be incarcerated and she is dying. I then proceeded to tell another fellow classic movie buff about this episode and he said that it was borrowed from a film! That film is 1932's One Way Passage. One Way Passage stars William Powell and Kay Francis, with supporting roles by frank McHugh, Aline McMahon, and Warren Hymer.

Kay Francis is perhaps a lesser known name to many classic film fans of today. Francis was a major player in precode era of film (roughly from 1929-1934), in which the Production Code of Ethics had not yet been enforced. Francis had several successes in this era, including One Way Passage and Trouble In Paradise (1932), co starring Miriam Hopkins and directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Francis came into films near the advent of sound, and was in a wave of Broadway actors and Actresses that made their way to Hollywood to try out appearing in sound pictures. Francis's career is a testament to how early film worked. She made 7 film appearances in 1932, when One Way Passage was released. By 1938 however, Francis was in a slew of actors dubbed "box office poison' by The Hollywood Reporter and her career hit a downswing when she was released from her contract with Warner Bros.

 

As a film, and especially a precode one, One Way Passage is engaging and fun, but it seemed rushed and goes by very quickly. The film has great elements and characterizations, but they aren't given a lot of time to grow before the film's short runtime is out. Francis's Joan and Powell's Dan meet in a bar in the first scene and then discover they are to board the ship, and immediately hit it off. The film also has two comic relief characters in the roles played by Frank McHugh and Aline McMahon. McHugh's drunkard character can be an annoying distraction from the film's romantic trappings, but he does help in the plot. McMahon plays a con woman posing as an heiress and is great fun in her role. Her character romances the police detective (Warren Hymer)  that has been hunting down Dan (Powell) as a distraction so Dan and Joan can be together.

Andress and Forsythe

The Love Boat episode that introduced me to this film occurred in 1983, the long running series' 7th season premiere. In addition to Forsythe and Andress, Michael Constantine, maybe then best known for his role on Room 222, appeared as the police detective character. Love Boat however nixed the characters played by McHugh and McMahon. Before Love Boat adapted it, One Way Passage was remade in 1940 as 'Til We Meet Again starring George Brent and Merle Oberon, and in a role the same as his in One Way Passage, Frank McHugh.