The Sun Never Sets (1939)

You can count on a good one with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and Basil Rathbone. Rathbone and his wife (Barbara O'Neil) are going home from foreign service in Gold Coast. On the way they run into the mining expedition of Lionel Atwill. Rathbone's younger brother (Fairbanks) is supposed to be going into the service, but backs out at the last minute in defiance of family tradition. (Randolph is the family name - supposedly kin to the Virginia Randolphs.) The only sympathetic family member is his grandfather, Sir C. Aubrey Smith, who keeps a world map to tell where all the family members are stationed. He tells Fairbanks that he wants him to "retire" his flag on the map when he dies - and it causes him to reconsider.

In Gold Coast, Atwill's mining company is causing all sorts of trouble in defiance of colonial authority. They are really running a broadcasting station for the Nazis, stirring up unrest in British colonial areas. Rathbone is sent back to the colony, along with Fairbanks, to investigate undercover the activities of Atwill. The assignment will look like a demotion, but Cecil Kellaway, his superior, tells him he will just have to bear it. O'Neil is expecting, but she insists on going with him despite his protests. (A more un-expectang-looking actress you will rarely see.) Melville Cooper, his assistant, greets him on their return. Cooper provides the comic relief in the movie. Atwill's company is trying to get the chief to sign over the mine land to them, but Rathbone shows up just in time to stop it. He stations young Douglas Walton to keep an eye on the mine and report to him. He sends in a report in code, but Fairbanks, tired of paperwork, overlooks it and leaves for a day off.

However, O'Neil goes into labor. The rains have set in and the roads are bad, but Cooper sets out to bring a doctor from 60 miles away. Walton's letter to Rathbone is coded "Imperative," which means that he has to leave, Atwill sends his men to get Walton, who has the fever. He tells them that he has told Rathbone what they are doing. Atwill goes to the foreign office, and tells Fairbanks that anything Walton said was in delirium and cannot be trusted. A runner is sent to Rathbone with an "Imperative" message to bring him back, saying O'Neil is in danger. On the way, however, another runner arrives saying that Walton is dead, murdered by Atwill's men. When Rathbone arrives home, he learns that O'Neil will be all right, but the baby had died. Rathbone learns that Fairbanks had faked the fact that Walton had sent an Imperative message. Back in London, Rathbone's report is rejected by Kellaway's superior, and he is ordered to bring his wife back home under a Dereliction of Duty charge. Fairbanks writes home to tell exactly what happened and to accept the blame. O'Neil blames Fairbanks for Rathbone's disgrace and will not tell him goodbye, but finally she relents. Fairbanks becomes relentlessly efficient. Then his fiance, Virginia Field, shows up. He tells her he has disgraced the family and is resigning. She gives him the box from his grandfather, and he places his flag in it. They get married.

In the meantime, Atwill is still stirring up unrest and sabotage among the natives, and German submarines are blowing up ships. The London foreign office discovers that the mind in Gold Coast actually produces molybdenum. They order Fairbanks to handle it. He discovers that the radio transmitter is in the mine. Then he feigns drunkenness and blunders into the broadcasting headquarters in the mine. He blurts out a distress code while the broadcast is running. The order is given to bomb the broadcasting station, with Rathbone in charge of the expedition. Rathbone discovers Fairbanks in the rubble, still alive. He returns home to a hero's welcome.




Fairbanks


Atwill


O'Neil