In the days leading up to WW2, Matt Gordon (Fred MacMurray) was on his way to making a fortune as a pearl smuggler. But when the Japanese attacked, he lost both a fortune in pearls and his fiancee, Linda (Ava Gardner), who was presumed killed. Now it's 1946 and, returning to retrieve a cache of pearls he'd previously hidden, he catches sight of Gardner! He soon finds she is now married but is suffering from amnesia - and she has no idea who he is! Gordon resolves to restore both pieces of his pre-war bliss, but he must overcome multiple obstacles: a shrewed British colonial official; Gardner's possessive, rich husband; and a criminal gang headed by Thomas Gomez, who's also after those pearls!

Director John Brahm expertly steers this poor-man's "Casablanca" at a good pace while making the studio-set Singapore visually interesting. There's help too from stars Fred MacMurray and Ava Gardner as lovers whose lives are complicated by World War II and Gardner's amnesia when MacMurray, who thought her dead, finds her again in postwar Singapore, married to a wealthy planter. For Fred MacMurray, a reliable and versatile leading man, this is one more of the many lead roles he took where his personality and competence made a career for him. Ava Gardner, exquisitely gowned and beautifully photographed, moves with customary grace through the attractive sets; whilst Porter Hall supplies a delightful impersonation of a tourist/plumber, and the ubiquitous Philip Ahn makes a surprise appearance as a barman!