Adventure and religion ride hand in hand as two priests oppose Communist forces who are overrunning China. It's directed by Leo McCarey, who also co-wrote the script from a novel by Pearl Buck, author of The Good Earth and Dragon Seed, other studies of oppression and unrest in the Orient - but they were better cast and less melodramatic than this action-filled but often cloying tale. McCarey started out as a director of comedy shorts in the 1920s, going on to direct Eddie Cantor, the Marx Brothers and Mae West before winning the first of his three Oscars with The Awful Truth in 1937. Satan Never Sleeps, which is ravishingly photographed in colour by Oswald Morris, was one of McCarey's few forays into the realms of drama and high adventure. It was also his last film, and he died eight years afterwards, at the age of 71.

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