Homer Dickens in his book, "The Films of Barbara Stanwyck," suggests this is one of the low points in Stanwyck's film career but it's entertaining in a Saturday-matinée sort of way and has --considering its low budget -- colorful and exotic backgrounds. (True, these backgrounds have the look of studio sets but that only adds to an air of calculated escapism. The tiger hunt scenes, by the way, were filmed in Thousand Oaks, California, at the World Animal Jungle Compound.) The movie reaches a climax in the last reel when Robert Ryan, stripped to the waist and looking pretty good for a man in his 40s, is flogged across the back by a pair of enthusiastic whippers. Apparently he's been sentenced to death-by-flogging by the local potentate but this apprehension may not be quite correct. Some evidence suggests that the script's original plan was to have the potentate's men flog Ryan and then execute him by beheading but any mention of the "beheading" part of the potentate's sentence got left on the cutting-room floor. In any case, it's a memorable flogging scene and it ranks 20th in the book, "Lash! The Hundred Great Scenes of Men Being Whipped in the Movies."
Review of Escape to Burma
