Strange Cargo is a 1940 American romantic drama film directed by Frank Borzage and starring Clark Gable and Joan Crawford in a story about a group of fugitive prisoners from a French penal colony. The adapted screenplay by Lawrence Hazard was based upon the 1936 novel, Not Too Narrow, Not Too Deep, by Richard Sale. The film was produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, it was the eighth and last film pairing of Crawford and Gable. The supporting cast includes Peter Lorre.

Julie (Crawford), a cafe entertainer in a town near the Devil’s Island (French Guiana) penal colony, meets Verne (Gable), a prisoner on wharf duty. Verne escapes and goes to Julie's room, but is apprehended after Msr. Pig (Peter Lorre) reports him, and he is returned to prison. Julie is fired for consorting with a prisoner. At the prison, Moll (Albert Dekker) has masterminded a jailbreak and takes Cambreau (Ian Hunter), Telez (Eduardo Ciannelli), Hessler (Paul Lukas), Flaubert (J. Edward Bromberg), and Dufond (John Arledge) with him.

Verne joins the escapees, taking Julie with him. The gentle Cambreau (a Christ figure) exerts a spiritual influence over the others, often reading from and quoting the Bible. As they trek through the jungle and then on the ocean in a boat, the others die with only Verne, Julie, Hessler, and Cambreau surviving the ordeal. Hessler disdains Cambreau's salvation and is last seen slinking off into the night, knowing as a gale arises that there is no turning back. Verne initially scoffs at Cambreau's spirituality, but saves him from drowning (as Cambreau clings to driftwood---again, as a Christ figure on Calvary's cross) and penitently decides to return to the prison to finish his sentence. Julie has grown to love Verne and promises to wait for him. 1

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