STAMBOUL QUEST: the puppy and the pulchritudinous

1934's STAMBOUL QUEST is not one of MGM's finest productions but it does have two things going for it, and one of them is the deliciously beautiful Myrna Loy.
Made immediately after she had completed the first 'Thin Man' movie and therefore before she had become etched into the public's consciousness as the witty, sophisticated, stylish and distinctly up-market Nora Charles, she plays a character who is brazenly sexual and not above showing a generous amount of skin if it'll advance her cause.

Set in Germany and Turkey in 1915 she plays legendary German counter espionage spy Fraulein Doktor. Recalled to Berlin she's handed her most important assignment - to uncover proof that the Turkish commander of the Dardanelles is passing vital military information to the British. Success could alter the whole course of the war, but her mission is complicated by an ardent American suitor who just won't take no for an answer.
A pre-Warner Brothers leading man George Brent plays the American lothario and does so to the detriment of the picture. He's everything that Loy isn't and not in a good way. Brent's medical student Douglas Beall is an over-excited puppy yapping at the heels of the alluring Fraulein, desperate to get her attention and show him some affection. About the only thing he doesn't do is pee on the carpet. It's very easy to understand what he sees in her but it's much more difficult to comprehend what a woman of her experience finds appealing in him. He doesn't even have the pencil mustache that was to become a Brent trademark at Warner! He's impetuous and immature, professing that he loves her within two hours of meeting her, and proposing marriage a couple of hours later. The Fraulein seduces men for a living and makes it a rule never to fall in love so what is it about Beall that makes her change her mind?
Both as characters and actors Loy and Brent are in different classes. Myrna is poised, self assured, confident and measured while George is all over the shop. Perhaps he was trying too hard because he knew he was too old for the part - he's thirty five attempting to pass for twenty. No wonder the Fraulein's boss, the wonderful Lionel Atwill, finds it hard to believe his most effective asset is losing her edge. Atwill by the way, is the second thing this film has going for it. He was one of that select group of character actors who enhanced any film they appeared in regardless of the script and direction, and both elements are founding wanting here.
Convoluted, clunky and implausible even by 1930s Hollywood standards STAMBOUL QUEST is still worth watching solely for the pleasure of spending 80 minutes in the company of the ravishing Miss Loy.