FOREIGN INTRIGUE

Robert Mitchum and Genevieve Page

FOREIGN INTRIGUE (1956). Produced, written and directed by Sheldon Reynolds.  

"Did he say anything before he died?" -- numerous characters

Dave Bishop (Robert Mitchum) works for a millionaire philanthropist named Danemore (Jean Galland). When Danemore dies of a sudden heart attack, Bishop realizes that he knows very little of the past of his employer. A mysterious letter and a sealed package to be opened only if Danemore's death was suspicious ignites Bishop's interest. His curiosity brings him into contact with a bald little man named Spring (Frederic O'Brady), who may be much more sinister than he seems. Bishop is involved with two women: Danemore's widow (Genevieve Page), who discovers that her marriage of convenience may not have as big a pay-off as she'd hoped for; and Brita (Ingrid Thulin) -- the daughter of another widow, Mrs. Lindquist (Inga Tidblad) -- who quickly falls in love with Dave. Bishop is then contacted by various government agents who convince him to pretend to be a blackmailer so he can get the goods on several men who each betrayed their country. 

Ingrid Thulin with Mitchum

Foreign Intrigue is greatly bolstered by a solid and engaging performance by Robert Mitchum, who always seems interested in what's happening even when at least half the audience has stopped giving a damn. The movie has a fairly decent premise but few outstanding incidents nor indeed any sequences that stand out in the mind (except perhaps when a little boy gives Mitchum a playful kick in the leg); there is no style, suspense or tension and after while you just want it to be over. Both Genevieve Page and Ingrid Thulin (billed as Ingrid Tulean) were "introduced" in this film, and they are both attractive and more than competent, although neither -- in this film, at least -- is especially distinctive. Thulin [Return from the Ashes] had appeared in several Swedish films previously, and of course worked with Ingmar Bergman a few years later. Genevieve Page [Youngblood Hawke] had also appeared in numerous films previously and had a lengthy international career. Paul Durand's score is interesting if not always appropriate. In Eastmancolor.

Verdict: You can miss Mitchum speaking French! **.

WHERE DANGER LIVES

 Robert Mitchum, Faith Domergue, Claude Rains

WHERE DANGER LIVES (1950). Director: John Farrow. Screenplay by Charles Bennett.

"Oh, Jeff, what's going to become of us?"

Jeff Cameron (Robert Mitchum) is a young, compassionate doctor who is called upon one evening to treat a woman who has attempted suicide. Margo Lannington (Faith Domergue of It Came from Beneath the Sea) seems to have everything to live for -- beauty, wealth, a luxurious home -- but the man she calls father (Claude Rains of The Passionate Friends) seems a little too dominating. Although Jeff already has a girlfriend in nurse Julie (Maureen O'Sullivan), he soon falls under the spell of sexy Margo, and wants to run away with her. But he discovers there's a major complication and that Margo hasn't exactly informed him of everything ... Before long they're taking a wild journey to Mexico.

Domergue and Mitchum 

Where Danger Lives, with a script by Hitchcock collaborator Charles Bennett, is unpredictable, so I won't reveal any of the plot twists that will keep the viewer completely absorbed for the film's relatively short length -- but the movie plays. Mitchum and Domergue both offer extremely competent Hollywood-style performances, meaning they are good but often perfunctory, not adding the shadings or nuances that other actors might have. Claude Rains, with only one scene, pretty much takes the acting honors, but that is to be expected. O'Sullivan, who was married to director John Farrow, has a small and thankless role. This is one of many, many movies in which  an essentially decent man (or what is at least meant to be) leaves a good woman flat to run off with a sexier female. Mitchum also appeared in the more famous film noir Out of the Past, but this is the better picture.

Verdict: Zesty film noir with sexy Domergue not having to share billing with a giant octopus. ***. 

OUT OF THE PAST

Jane Greer

OUT OF THE PAST (1947). Director: Jacques Tourneur.

"You're like a leaf that's been blown from one gutter to another."

Jeff (Robert Mitchum) has a new life running a gas station, as well as a girlfriend named Ann (Virginia Huston), when his past catches up with him in the person of gunsel, Joe (Paul Valentine). Joe works for crooked big shot Whit (Kirk Douglas), and some time ago he hired Jeff to go after his gorgeous gal pal, Kathie (Jane Greer), who not only shot Whit but left town with $40,000 in cash. In flashback we learn how Jeff caught up with Kathie and decided he wanted her for himself. But Kathie may have had other plans. Now she's back with Whit, who wants Jeff to do a favor for him -- or else. Well, Out of the Past should be prime film noir -- it certainly has all of the elements (even if much of it is actually played in sunlight instead of shadows), including a beautiful femme fatale, but somehow this just doesn't add up. The characters are little more than stick figures, brought to life with satisfactory but somehow second-rate thesping. Everyone, especially Douglas, who underplays nicely, is cool and professional but there's something missing, although Paul Valentine [House of Strangers] probably has the best role of his career in this and runs with it. Virginia Huston [Tarzan's Peril] is pleasant and competent but she only had a few credits after this. Dickie Moore [Passion Flower] makes an impression as the deaf and mute boy who works for Jeff at the gas station, as do Ken Niles as the nervous lawyer, Eels, and Rhonda Fleming as his secretary. Others in the cast are Steve Brodie as Jeff's former partner, and Richard Webb as a man who's carrying a long-time torch for Ann. The film is beautifully photographed in crisp black and white by Nicholas Musuraca [Clash By Night], and Roy Webb has contributed an effective theme. There's a certain poignancy to the conclusion, hinging on a not-so-little white lie. (Whether the lie should have been told or not Ill leave up to the individual viewer.) There's so much confusing going back and forth from place to place by the cast that it gets somewhat tiresome after awhile.

Verdict: For a great film noir with Robert Mitchum watch Otto Preminger's Angel Face instead of this. **1/2. 

NOT AS A STRANGER

Olivia de Havilland

NOT AS A STRANGER (1955). Producer/director: Stanley Kramer.

"Chris, help me, for God's sake, help me." --Lucas Marsh.

Lucas Marsh (Robert Mitchum) is determined to be a doctor but hasn't got the financial backing he needs to continue his internship. To get the money he romances the adoring Swedish nurse, Kristina (Olivia de Havilland), who has saved up quite a bit of money. The two get married, Lucas is able to complete his studies, and the couple relocate to a small town where Lucas becomes assistant to the aging family doctor, Dave Runkleman (Charles Bickford). Then there's the complication of the seductive Widow Lang (Gloria Grahame). Will Lucas ever be able to feel an honest and profound love for his wife? Not as a Stranger is a nice picture with winning performances, with Mitchum [Angel Face] doing some of the best work of his career. De Havilland [The Dark Mirror] is on the mark as Kris, as is Grahame, but she is given so little to do that it's a wonder her character was even included. It's also a mystery why Frank Sinatra [The Kissing Bandit] took the role of Al, Lucas' intern-buddy, as it's really a relatively minor supporting part. When Sinatra and Mitchum are on screen together, Frank looks unbelievably scrawny in contrast, which the crooner must have hated, but his performance is fine. Lon Chaney Jr. is not memorable as Lucas' drunken father, playing it in too obvious and phony a fashion, but Gertrude Hoffman has a nice bit as an old woman who tells the doctor that she has nowhere to go. The film introduces some weighty matters -- is the doctor's job just to keep people alive no matter what even when they're ready to let go? -- but never quite gets a grip on them. People in the doctor's office  include everyone from Nancy Kulp to Alfalfa! Lee Marvin and Mae Clarke have smaller roles as nurse and intern. Broderick Crawford offers a gruff but interesting performance as Lucas' and Al's teacher in the early hospital scenes. Franz Planer's photography is excellent, and it could be said that George Antheil's score is more than partly responsible for the whole success of the movie.

Verdict: Some moving moments and an interesting story, with a very well-cast and effective Mitchum. ***.

WHEN STRANGERS MARRY/BETRAYAL

Neil Hamilton confers with Robert Mitchum

WHEN STRANGERS MARRY (aka Betrayal/1944), Director: William Castle.

Mildred Baxter (Kim Hunter) marries in haste and then has reason to worry. Her new husband, Paul (Dean Jagger) is [unnecessarily] secretive and she comes to suspect that he may be the notorious silk tie strangler. Fred Grahm (Robert Mitchum), who has always loved Millie, tries to be supportive and also has meetings with Lieutenant Blake (Neil Hamilton), who suggests he knows more than he's saying. When Strangers Marry is a pretty dull alleged suspense film whose twist comes as little surprise. The only lively scene takes place in a black jazz club, supposedly in Harlem. Hunter [The Seventh Victim] is good, Mitchum is very good, Jagger [The Brotherhood of the Bell] is hamstrung by his role, and Hamilton is Hamilton. When Millie moves into her new apartment there's a photo of director William Castle [Macabre] on the mantle.

Verdict: A Monogram cheapie and it shows. *1/2.

ANGEL FACE

Jean Simmons and Robert Mitchum

ANGEL FACE (1952). Producer/director: Otto Preminger.

"If you want to play with matches, that's your business, but not in gas-filled rooms."

Ambulance driver Frank Jessup (Robert Mitchum) goes out on a call to a California estate where Mrs. Tremayne (Barbara O'Neil of Stella Dallas) has had a close call with a gas jet in her room. Frank meets the woman's step-daughter, Diane (Jean Simmons), and the two begin a sort of romance, despite the fact that Frank has a steady and reliable gal in Mary (Mona Freeman). Diane loves her father (Herbert Marshall of Girls' Dormitory), a writer who is down on his luck and living off of his wife, whom Diane loathes. Then there's a horrendous accident in which two deaths occur ... how much did Diane have to do with it? Angel Face is a very entertaining melodrama with very good performances from the entire cast, which includes Leon Ames as a defense lawyer and Kenneth  Tobey as another ambulance driver with an eye for Mary. There are two incredible car crash sequences, a knock-out ending, and a fine score by Dimitri Tiomkin. For my money this is superior to Preminger's Laura. Some people find similarities in this to Leave Her to Heaven, made in 1945, and they probably aren't wrong.

Verdict: Zesty, absorbing film noir with some bite to it. ***1/2.

JOHNNY DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE

William Terry, Simone Simon and James Ellison

JOHNNY DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE (1944). Director: Joe May.

In this very weird movie a young lady named Kathie (Simone Simon of Girls' Dormitory) takes a train to Washington D.C. and becomes the victim of a tiny bad luck gremlin named Rumplestilzken (voiced by Bugs Bunny's Mel Blanc). She winds up taking the apartment of a departing marine named Johnny (William Terry), but learns too late that he has given out keys to friends, soldiers, lady friends, and other apartment dwellers who need to use the bathroom. (Kathie makes all sorts of repairs to the apartment, but it never occurs to her to have the lock changed!) A sailor named Mike (James Ellison of Next Time I Marry) is one of the interlopers, along with his pal Jack (Chick Chandler of Lost Continent), and he finds himself vying with a returning Johnny, on leave, for Kathie's affections. The first thing you think while watching the beginning of this movie is that it could be either cute or stupid, and unfortunately it's much more of the latter than the former. The cast is appealing, especially a winsome Simon and sensitive Terry, and there are a couple of chuckles, but mostly it's more irritating than amusing. The ending is interesting, however, as you wait to find out which man Kathie is going to agree to marry and there's a surprise or two. Poor Rondo Hatton [House of Horrors] has a bit where he plays an undertaker who frightens Kathie. Grady Sutton and Robert Mitchum have smaller roles and are swell.

Verdict:  Seems different at first but is really the same old silly stuff. **.

THE LOCKET

Robert Mitchum and Laraine Day

THE LOCKET (1946). Director: John Brahm.

"How could I ever have liked you, Norman? -- you're arrogant, suspicious, neurotic!"

John Willis (Gene Raymond) is just about to marry his fiancee, Nancy (Laraine Day of Foreign Correspondent), when a psychiatrist named Blair (Brian Aherne) bursts in, tells him he was once married to Nancy, and that Willis will be making a terrible mistake if he goes ahead with the wedding. What follows is a long flashback -- interrupted by two flashbacks within the flashback -- in which Blair relates his history with Nancy to Willis, including how an artist named Norman (Robert Mitchum) told him that Nancy had knowledge of a certain crime ... Since all the plot twists are part of the fun of The Locket I won't say any more, only that the movie is certainly psychologically dubious, but nevertheless fascinating, and quite entertaining. Day gives one of her best performances, resisting all chances to chew the scenery, and making it clear how so many men could fall for her despite her, uh, problems. Raymond and Aherne are fine, but a miscast Mitchum really just walks through the role of Norman and gives us absolutely no sign of his emotional torment (which makes one of his actions more surprising but also less believable). Henry Stephenson and Ricardo Cortez are swell in smaller roles, and Katherine Emery scores as Willis' mother, who knew Nancy as a child in a pivotal flashback sequence. Brahm also directed Hangover Square and many others.

Verdict: Unusual and absorbing melodrama with a fine lead performance. ***.

MACAO

MACAO (1952). Director: Josef von Sternberg.

Into Macao come three individuals: Julie Benson (Jane Russell), who wants to look for a singing engagement; Nick Cochran (Robert Mitchum), who lost his wallet and passport and also needs a job; and Lawrence Trumble (William Bendix) who at least seems to be a legitimate businessman. The trouble starts when casino owner Vincent Halloran (Brad Dexter) makes up his mind that Cochran is really a New York City police detective who's come to haul him past the three mile limit and back to the states to pay for his crimes. But has Halloran picked the right person? What could have been an intriguing bit of film noir -- and it holds the attention in a limited way -- is done in by a poor script and a meandering pace that doesn't create or sustain any tension. Mitchum and Russell are both in butch mode throughout the movie -- Russell's as hard as nails and about as appealing -- and Bendix is as good as ever. Brad Dexter makes little impression and it's easy to see why he did mostly TV shows in the future as he lacked that certain "big screen" presence. Gloria Grahame is wasted in a small role as one of Halloran's employees.

Verdict: A wasted trip. **.

SECOND CHANCE

SECOND CHANCE (1953). Director: Rudolph Mate.

Clare (Linda Darnell) used to be the girlfriend of a mobster, and has been on the run since the cops asked her to testify against him. A hit man (Jack Palance), who is infatuated with her, has been sent to kill her or bring her back. In the meantime, Clare has fallen for Russ (Robert Mitchum), a boxer trying to make his way back to the big time. The actors aren't able to do much to bring these one-dimensional characters to life, and most of the film is pretty dull and routine until the final quarter -- which is almost a knock out. The three principals and several others get trapped in a cable car dangling high over Mexico. Will Mitchum be able to swing to the nearby mountain and bring help before the cable completely snaps and they crash to the ground? Will Palance manage to knock off Clare in front of a police officer? Will there be a mile-high confrontation between Mitchum and Palance (anyone who can't answer that has never been to the movies). The climax is harrowing, to say the least; it's like you're watching a completely different movie. This was released in 3D, but the camera doesn't seem to take the slightest advantage of the process.

Verdict: Entertaining in spite of the many dumb moments. ***.

THE DANCING MASTERS

THE DANCING MASTERS (1943). Director: Malcolm St. Clair.

Laurel and Hardy run a dance studio but are way behind in their bills. They have one wealthy student, Trudy (Trudy Marshall) who's in love with Grant (Robert Bailey), whom her father detests. Hardy tries to make Laurel break his leg so they can collect on an insurance policy, then the two help Grant demonstrate his "invisible" ray gun. A protracted climactic sequence with a runaway bus that winds up on a roller coaster track is frenetic but not very funny, but there are some amusing bits in the film, including an auction for a grandfather clock that ends in disaster. Margaret Dumont is amusing as Trudy's mother, but she hasn't enough to do. Robert Mitchum has a small role as a small time hood selling "insurance" to the boys. Nestor Paiva plays another crook. The script for this picture never really jells, and despite some good moments, it can't be considered one of the better L&H features.

Verdict: Not the boys at their best. **.

THE BIG STEAL

THE BIG STEAL (1949). Director: Don Siegel.

Duke Halliday (Robert Mitchum) meets up with Joan Graham (Jane Greer) in Mexico where both discover that they are in pursuit of the same man, Jim Fiske (Patric Knowles), who stole money from them. In the meantime Captain Blake (William Bendix) is in pursuit of Halliday. It takes a while to figure out who are the good guys and who are the bad guys in a movie that consists of a lot of seemingly aimless running and driving around. It all comes together in the climax, but by then it's a little too late. However, there are some exciting and suspenseful moments in the film, and the acting is good. Mitchum was at his best in roles like this, and The Big Steal offers one of his most credible performances. While Greer is not on his level, she's quite good when she's testily bantering with Mitchum. The ever-reliable Bendix is as good as ever and even Knowles turns in a solid performance. However the picture is almost snatched away by middle-aged Ramon Navarro, who is delightful as Inspector General Ortega. (Don Alvarado plays his lieutenant.) Pascual Garcia Pena of Black Scorpion and The Beast of Hollow Mountain plays a construction worker who helps Greer and Mitchum momentarily get away from Bendix.

Verdict: Distinctly minor but entertaining. **1/2.

RACHEL AND THE STRANGER

RACHEL AND THE STRANGER (1948). Director: Norman Foster. Screenplay by Howard Fast and Waldo Salt.

After his beloved wife dies, Ohio rancher Dave (William Holden) buys and marries a bond servant named Rachel (Loretta Young) to look after his young son Davey (Gary Gray) and help with the chores. Unfortunately, his grief makes it impossible for him to act like a real husband with the woman. A wandering friend named Jim (Robert Mitchum) sees the problem and decides that Rachel should marry him. This lovely film features one of Holden's best performances as the widower who tries too hard to remain faithful to his dead wife. One might not see Loretta Young in the deglamorized role of Rachel, but she is also excellent. Robert Mitchum fails to get across his character's internal emotions, but is otherwise competent. Gary Gray is quite good as young Davey. The theme of loneliness resonates throughout the movie.

Verdict: This is a “little” picture but a memorable one. ***.