International Settlement

International Settlement is a 1938 American drama film directed by Eugene Forde and starring Dolores del Río, George Sanders and June Lang. It is set in the Shanghai International Settlement during the Sino-Japanese War. In the film, a gun runner falls in love with a beautiful French singer. Plot The "International Settlement" is in the heart of Shanghai, where Western foreign powers had long controlled a protected enclave divided among 13 nations. Japanese forces have successfully overrun Beiping and are now heading for Shanghai. Newsreel footage (actual) shows Japanese bombers attacking Beiping and Chinese refugees fleeing south. Del Forbes, a vagabond adventurer with a dapper mustache, sailing for China, is broke enough to agree to impersonate a fellow passenger, ailing munitions dealer Zabellu. Too ill to leave the ship, Zabellu pays Forbes to impersonate him in an illegal arms deal for which he's owed some 200,000 pounds, which Forbes understands is "nearly a million dollars!!" Forbes gets the last hotel room in the British sector of the International Settlement, crowded with frightened people escaping from the Japanese invasion of Beiping in the north. Playing a suave, slightly condescending British cad, Forbes ignores the annoying advances of Joyce, a naïve American girl. Instead, he falls hard for Lenore, a stunning nightclub singer he first meets when she breaks into his room and tries to kill him She misses, but Forbes decides she is far too beautiful to turn over to the police, promptly inviting her to dinner later. Forbes rickshaws to the "native city"the Chinese quarter outside the Settlementto carry through the deal with shady Joseph Lang and his partner Murdock. Forbes fights off an attack as he leaves with the money but when he delivers it to the ship, he learns Zabellu has died of natural causes. Forbes is now walking around Shanghai with the equivalent of a million dollars around his waist.