His Kind of Woman

Occasionally I have some genuine freak-out moments. Case in point? I’ve been writing movie reviews here with Just Hit Play since January 2009. I must be getting old! I’ve mentioned before though the timing of starting some of these reviews. I watched some good, even great, movies in the months right before I started this site but never reviewed them, not feeling confident enough to review months later from memory. That’s today’s review, a film noir from 1951, His Kind of Woman, that’s one of my favorites.

A down on his luck gambler living in Los Angeles, Dan Milner (Robert Mitchum) is drifting along with the clothes on his back and very little money in his pocket. Then, his luck turns on a dime, but it seems so easy. A mysterious man with underworld connections offers him a huge payday if he’ll simply leave the country and visit Mexico. There’s a catch though. He can’t know why, only get to a remote hotel on the Baja California peninsula and wait. From there, he won’t be able to return to the United States for at least a year. Suspicious but in need of the money, Milner takes the deal and heads to Mexico. There at the hotel, he meets a beautiful singer, Lenore (Jane Russell), in pursuit of a popular Hollywood actor, Mark Cardigan (Vincent Price), and an odd assortment of guests and locals. Milner sits back and waits for what’s heading his way. What has he gotten himself into exactly?

I saw this 1951 film noir in November 2008, two months before I started writing these reviews. Talk about bad timing, huh? I loved it, something pulling me in and keeping me interested throughout its two-hour running time. It comes from bazillionaire Howard Hughes and had a whole bunch of production problems that become evident in the final act. Now that said, there’s something charming and fun about it from beginning to end. It hasn’t been distributed much, if at all, since its release and ‘Kind’ doesn’t have a huge following. The moral of the story is simple. It should. I highly recommend it.

To say this is a film noir is limiting. It is to be sure, but it tries to do a lot more and generally, succeeds on most of those fronts. Director John Farrow (and an uncredited Richard Fleischer when Hughes didn’t like Farrow’s work) is at the helm of an equal parts film noir, love story, comedy with some action and shootouts thrown in. It isn’t always perfect, but the script makes a mostly successful go at it. Six different people are listed at the IMDB page for this movie as having written part of ‘Kind’ (again reflecting the behind the scenes drama). It’s smart. The dialogue crackles. The story is sorta kinda there, relying on the actors to bring the at-times slow story to life. I think the biggest compliment I can say is that it almost plays like a spoof of the film noir genre itself…but never truly becomes a spoof. Now that takes some doing. Not too light, not too heavy-handed, but more importantly and more successfully, somewhere in between.

Just a few weeks ago, I reviewed 1952’s Macao, another pairing of stars Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell. I watched ‘Kind’ back in 2008 in my Jane Russell phase. I’d never seen her films but fell hard for her right away, and this was only my second Russell film I believe. Again, talk about an on-screen match made in heaven. It’s easy to say Mitchum does the same thing movie in and movie out – that laconic, loner anti-hero – but he brings a different edge and energy with each passing film. I loved his Milner character, a man who knows he’s in trouble but keeps going along to figure out what’s up. The same for Russell’s Lenore, a young woman looking for love but with a fair share of failed attempts behind her. The duo just WORKS so well together. Their scenes are pretty pitch perfect throughout. They’re believable, you like them, and they seem to like each other. How can you go wrong?

What surprised me about the movie’s general unknown quality is the cast. With the cast assembled, how does it not have more of a reputation even by accident? Mitchum and Russell are excellent, but it’s Vincent Price who steals the show. His Mark Cardigan is an Errol Flynn-like movie star, a swashbuckler who’s looking for his movie star life to become his real life. A little too much at times, but very funny. Still not enough? There’s also Tim Holt as an investigating cop, Charles McGraw as a thug and enforcer, Raymond Burr as a mobster trying to get back into the U.S., Jim Backus as a talkative investment banker, Philip Van Zandt as the hotel owner, and an uncredited Anthony Caruso a brooding sidekick to Burr. Not bad at all.

An additional character worth mentioning is the hotel set on the Baja California peninsula. It’s so 1940s/1950s stylish with its bungalows and pool and just some really cool architecture. The sets date the movie a bit, but it truly becomes an additional character. The ending? Yeah, things fall apart a bit as the last 40 minutes get a little too kooky. Even when it goes off the tracks though, ‘Kind’ is still a really fun movie. Definitely worth seeking out, the 1951 film noir popping up occasionally on Turner Classic Movie’s schedule.

His Kind of Woman (1951): *** 1/2 /****

Macao

They don't have the all-time classics to their names that other film couples did. They weren't Tracy and Hepburn or Bogart and Hepburn or Wayne and O'Hara. But you know what stars Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell had in their two films together? An easy-going, sizzling charm that oozed off the screen. I'm hoping to write reviews for both soon, starting here with 1952's Macao, their second pairing.

Just 40 or so miles from Hong Kong, the city of Macao in the years following World War II has become a den of gambling, corruption, violence and any number of any other vices. One particularly crooked casino owner with his hands in everything, Vince Halloran (Brad Dexter), is especially worried though after he and his men killed an investigating officer from New York. They're playing the waiting game for the officer's replacement...and maybe some more heavy duty reinforcements. Coming ashore from a ship traveling from Hong Kong, all but three passengers are recognized, leading Halloran to believe one of them is the cop. The suspects? A Navy veteran on the run, Nick Cochran (Mitchum), a talkative salesman, Lawrence Trumble (William Bendix), and a nightclub singer looking for a job, Julie Benson (Russell). Who is the right one to target? Just which one is the cop looking to take Halloran in?

If that doesn't sound like the most pointed plot description, well, it ain't. Director Josef von Sternberg (along with some uncredited work from Nicholas Ray) was a silent film director who drifted along a touch when the sound era moved into the film industry. The Wikipedia page for 'Macao' specifically says "When von Sternberg's scenes made no sense dramatically..." so you know he wasn't always interested in a Point A to Point B (or C-through-Z) story to begin with. Production actually wrapped on filming in 1950, and then the finished product sat on the shelf for most of two years. How come? Producer Howard Hughes' track record basically. Decisions didn't have to make a whole lot of sense when your boss is one of the world's richest people. What's the end result then for this shelved, quasi-film noir?

It's good to great early on because of its randomness and general kookiness. It derails some in the last 20 minutes of its 80-minute running time. Let's focus on the positive though. 'Macao' is genuinely fun as everything is laid out and established. It mixes classic film noir with international intrigue with the huge chemistry between Mitchum and Russell with some laughs along the way. Long story short...it is a pleasant, enjoyable movie. It is dark, but not as dark as most film noirs. Some reviews point to that lack of a unified tone as a negative but the helter-skelter tone really worked for me. Should it have? Probably not but something clicks for me. Filmed in black and white with some stock footage of Macao and Hong Kong mixed in with the seedy Hollywood sets for the two cities, Sternberg's film has style and a great visual look.

Blah blah blah with all that film analysis. Let's talk about movie star chemistry!!! Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell are two of my favorites. Mitchum was that perfect tough guy anti-hero who just didn't give a crap. Russell was a solid actress, singer and performer who fit in well with the tough guys when her film roles allowed it. The end result? Two actors who don't look like they're acting. They're just hanging out, having a ton of fun bringing these two characters together. Their chemistry is evident from Scene No. 1 and never lets up. Not remembered as a great role -- and rightfully so -- Mitchum is pretty perfect, laconic and laid back with a checkered past hanging over his head. The same for Russell's Julie, bouncing from city to city looking for work. Oh, and Russell is drop dead gorgeous here. Hughes made her a star by utilizing her....natural talent I'll say. She's beautiful, and she's even given a chance to sing two songs.

The rest of the cast is solid throughout. I especially liked Bendix as Lawrence C. Trumble, fast-talking, looking to blow off some steam traveling salesman. His almost manic delivery pairs well with Mitchum's slower-paced line reads. Dexter is perfectly slimy as Halloran, the black market casino dealer always with an eye on shady deals and easy money. Also look for Thomas Gomez as the corrupt police officer working with Halloran, poorly and under-used Gloria Grahame as Halloran's much-maligned girlfriend, Philip Ahn as Halloran's steely-eyed enforcer, and Vladimir Sokoloff as a mysterious blind man who seems to pop up at the right moment whenever needed. A fun cast with some cool parts.

Now that line before about von Sternberg's lack of dramatic timing, yeah, that comes into play in the last 20 minutes. The cool, couldn't care less style loses all momentum. The finale turns into a big chase scene that doesn't keep the adrenaline flowing unfortunately. The ending itself feels a tad rushed, a disappointing end to an otherwise very enjoyable movie.

Macao (1952): ** 1/2 /****

Montana Belle

Operating for over a decade in the last half of the 19th Century, the Dalton gang specialized in bank and train robberies before ultimately meeting their maker in a bloody shootout. Belle Starr was a female outlaw in the old west who rose to notoriety late in life. By all accounts, the two never crossed paths, but what's the fun in that? In a Abbot and Costello-like pairing, they do team up in 1952's Montana Belle.

Rescued from a lynch mob by Bob Dalton (Scott Brady), infamous outlaw Belle Starr (Jane Russell) joins up with the Dalton gang at their hideout in the hills. Bob quickly sets his sights on Belle, but it will have to wait. His brothers, especially Emmett (Ray Teal), want nothing to do with her, especially as they're planning their next robbery. Belle is left behind with two other members of the gang and when a posse shows up soon after, they draw their own conclusions. The Daltons set them up to take a fall, but Belle and Co. escape, vowing to start their own gang and go up against the brothers. The two are on a collision course, and with the law after them, nothing will come easily.

A no frills western from RKO studios, this is one of many B-movies that the studio became famous for. It lacks the scale of much bigger, more epic movies of the time, and in general has that quasi-cheap feel to it. The outdoor scenes are clearly filmed inside on sound stages, and the indoor sets are stylish and clean within an inch of their lives. In other words, like no wild west that ever existed. Now whether it's because it is 59 years later or just the look of the film, even the colors are washed out where everything looks faded now.  A big budget isn't a must for a successful movie though, and 'Montana' has enough going for it to recommend.

For starters, the stable of RKO character actors is turned out here. Russell rose to fame with the then-scandalous The Outlaw in 1943, but never became a huge star in the late 1940s or 1950s. She was relegated to quick, entertaining movies like this. Without the greatest range as an actress, Russell holds her own though as a tough female character until the story requires her not to be. More on that later. Brady and Teal are the more visible of the Daltons, including background parts for Rory Mallinson (Grat) and Holly Bane (Ben). Forrest Tucker and Jack Lambert are bright spots as Mac and Ringo, Belle's partners in crime. Even look for Andy Devine in a supporting part that doesn't have him as shrill as he usually was.  I guess that's a positive.

The story for this 82-minute western is more than a little schizophrenic with far too much going on in such a short movie. At different points, Russell is in love with or at least being pursued by Brady's Bob, Tucker's Mac, and George Brent as Tom Bradfield, the owner of a gambling house Belle intends to knock over. The story takes quick and surprising detours, bouncing back and forth between a more typical western story with its shootouts and betrayals with a less successful love story(ies). The pacing isn't a huge problem, but basically any scene with Russell's Belle and Brent's Tom lag a bit. Quite a singer when she wasn't acting, Russell also gets to sing two songs, including the Gilded Lily and The Man in the Moon. She's a good singer and seeing her dressed up as a saloon girl is never a bad thing, but both numbers bring the already drifting story to a screeching halt.

But just when it looks like things are going nowhere fast, 'Montana' redeems itself in the end. Belle's gang and the Daltons end up putting their differences aside and work together to rob a bank holding $1 million bucks waiting to be issued to cattle sellers. As harmless and even generic as the story has been up to this point, things change in a big way. Somewhat similar to the Dalton's Coffeyville raid, the robbery doesn't go off anywhere near as planned. There is a realism and darkness to this ending that the rest of the movie was lacking. A more pointed story in this vein certainly would have boosted the rating a bit. It also has one of the all-time great western lines ever, Bob Dalton telling Mac, "Let's walk out of this town." I don't want to give it away so see it in context!

Not a particularly memorable western, but fans of the genre should find enough to enjoy it. Make sure to stay through the end too, or at least the shootout in town. A last scene between Belle and Tom is sappy beyond belief, but the failed robbery makes some of the slower moments throughout worth the wait.

Montana Belle <---TCM trailer (1952): ** 1/2 /****

Young Widow

Let's get the easy part of the way. When reviewing/criticizing female actors, I do my best to avoid any sort of criticism of their looks because 1. It sounds sexist, and 2. Unless the actresses' physical appearance is key to the movie, it sounds stupid in the context of a review. That being said...I love Jane Russell.  The Hollywood starlet recently died in February at the age of 90, but in her heyday she was drop dead gorgeous. I'd never heard of her until the last two or three years, but now I'll basically watch anything with her starring in it, like 1946's Young Widow.

Just a week or so ago, I reviewed 'Till the End of Time,' the story of World War II veterans returning home at the end of the war, struggling to adjust to the lives they had left behind years before. Like so many pieces of history, there is so much more going on than we can ever know. It's the little things you just never think of, or at least I don't. The soldiers returned, but what about those who didn't, buried in hundreds and thousands of graves all over the Pacific and Europe? What about the loved ones they left behind? How did they move on? Did they move on? While the storytelling is all over the place in this movie, the premise is interesting if nothing else.

After her husband is killed in an aerial reconnaissance mission over Berlin, young and recently widowed Joan Kenwood (Russell) returns to the United States after living in England. She returns to her family home in the south, but quickly finds out that everything reminds her of her recently deceased husband. Instead, Joan heads to New York where she rooms with an old friend, Peg (Penny Singleton), who is waiting for her husband -- a submariner -- to return home too. Her boss, Peter Waring (Kent Taylor), offers her the same job she left at a NYC newspaper, but Joan just can't cope yet as she struggles to move on from her husband's death. Making her transition tougher? An Air Force pilot, Lt. Jim Cameron (Louis Hayward), is aggressively pursuing her through all her rejections, unwilling to take 'no' for an answer. 

Though she had made the then-scandalous but now tame The Outlaw in 1943, Young Widow was more than likely most moviegoers introduction to Jane Russell.  Thanks to the controversy over her outfits (or lack of), The Outlaw was in and out of theaters due to censorship issues.  The performance is pretty impressive on its own even if she'd done the part 10 years later or so. But for a girl basically picked up off the street with little acting background to do a role like this is that much more impressive. Like so many good-looking actresses -- and actors too I suppose -- her looks sometimes overshadowed her actual acting ability. Like my recent reviews of Audie Murphy pointed out, I think Russell was best when she was in her comfort zone. She could do drama, but she was best at comedy. If there was any question that she could do drama though, this movie should put them to rest.

What will separate Russell's acting here from most is that she underplays it. Emotionally, she's destroyed, torn up, a wreck because the person she loved most in the world is gone. Maybe it's the character, maybe it's Russell's acting style (up to you to decide), but she's not theatrically over the top. Joan doesn't throw things across rooms and scream and cry hysterically. Instead she buries the pain and broods on it which ends up biting her in the backside anyway.  I think it's a great performance overall, understated in its effectiveness without playing to obvious cliches. For anyone who hasn't seen Russell in a dramatic role, this would be an appropriate introduction.

The problem is that beyond Russell's performance, the movie is really odd in terms of pacing and tone. It is a drama, but there are random moments of comedy thrown in. One of Peg's other roommates, Mac (Marie Wilson), is a dimwitted blonde who always has a gaggle of soldiers following her. These soldiers (including Norman Lloyd, Steve Brodie and Robert Holton) have these weirdly comedic scenes that present them as some out of place vaudeville team. Joan's trip back home makes Song of the South seem politically correct too with two Odd Couple aunts (one a belle, the other a tomboy) and two inexplicable black kids hanging around. A late scene has Joan and Jim on a date having to trick a motorcycle cop. I suppose its meant to show their chemistry, their budding relationship, but it would have been more appropriate in a Bob Hope/Bing Crosby comedy, not here. If the movie was handled as a drama throughout, it would certainly have been a better movie.

With a chance to make and develop a truly heartfelt relationship, 'Young' instead goes down a different route. A guy refusing to accept that a girl is not interested in him is one thing, even in a movie. But the way Lt. Cameron goes about it borders on stalker-behavior, following her home and basically badgering Joan into submission. Finally she not so pleasantly caves and goes out with him. How does she end up falling for him? He rescues a woman in a subway who has fainted onto the tracks as a train speeds toward them. So it's nothing about his personality or who he is as a person, just that he reacted in that situation. Thankfully after that the relationship grows in a genuine fashion, putting that scene far behind.

A decent movie that is hamstrung by some truly bad choices in film-making. Mostly worth watch for Jane Russell's performance which carries the movie. And even in a dramatic story about a war widow, producers still found a way to get Ms. Russell into a swimsuit...several times.  You know, just because you can. As you can see by the poster above, the advertisers clearly played up the sex kitten vibe...of which the movie has none. Go figure.

Young Widow (1946): **/****

Fate is the Hunter

When I think of disaster movies, I think The Poseidon Adventure and other 1970s epically bad but still enjoyable movies with huge casts of stars and dated special effects.  Through the 1950s and 1960s, disaster movies were made, just not on the same scale.  Only part of 1964's Fate is the Hunter really matches up with any of the criteria for a disaster flick, but it foreshadows what was to come in the coming decades as audiences watched planes crash, earthquakes tear apart the world, towering buildings go up in flames and much, much more.

Director Ralph Nelson takes control of the helms here in this quasi-disaster flick which is both ahead of its time in storytelling but also very dated at times.  Nelson is one of those hidden gems of a director you stumble across every so often.  He was never pigeon-holed into one specific type of movie and ended up directing films across countless genres.  Action, western, drama, comedy, message movies, he tried them all and did them all well.  Never flashy but always getting the job done in above average fashion, Nelson doesn't have a true classic to his name, but his filmography is nonetheless littered with worthwhile movies.

On a flight from Los Angeles to Seattle, veteran pilot Capt. Jack Savage (Rod Taylor) and his crew run into mechanical problems and are forced to crash land on a beach, the jet airliner exploding on contact with a pier running across the beach. Everyone on board other than one stewardess (Suzanne Pleshette) is killed, and the public, the corporation, and the media want answers.  What happened that caused Savage to attempt such a difficult maneuver? All evidence points to pilot error being the cause, but airline executive, former pilot and friend of Savage's, Sam McBane (Glenn Ford), thinks something else happened. Time is running out though, and McBane must prove Savage's innocence before a board of inquiry pins the blame on the deceased pilot.

Wasting little time surprising the viewer, Nelson kills off star Rod Taylor before the credits even roll.  Just when you think Taylor's Savage has successfully landed his jet airliner carrying 49 passengers...BOOM! The plane explodes, and 'Fate is the Hunter' pops up on the screen.  Talk about a tone-setter. No worries though for Taylor fans, this is not the last we'll see of him.  His involvement in the movie from there on in besides his character being constantly talked about is through flashbacks that flesh him out as an individual.  It's those little bits of character that should help us decide if this experienced, always calm and capable pilot was really incapable of dealing with what seemed like a minor mechanical issue.  Long story short, don't miss the first 10 minutes, or you'll be lost.

The problem any movie faces when it has such a strong start is sustaining that energy over the length of the movie.  That's where 'Hunter' struggles.  The investigation is interesting enough because it's hard not to be curious about what actually caused the plane to malfunction in such a surprising way.  But Ford's questioning gets tedious quickly.  The flashbacks are beyond tedious and serve only to make Savage more of a 3-D character.  After the first flashback, it becomes too much.  We get it.  He's a good pilot who is cocky, arrogant, not always likable and quite the ladies man.  But is a movie really going to peg Taylor as a boozehound who caused the deaths of over 50 people? I think not.  It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of how Taylor didn't crash the plane because he was drunk. 

Worse than that though (as a Lost fan I can appreciate even the slowest of flashbacks) is the direction Ford's character and the story takes overall in the final half hour.  Now granted, the word 'Fate' is in the movie's title.  As the evidence comes together and Ford's McBane talks to all these possible witnesses, he begins to question if maybe, just maybe, fate played a role in that plane crashing.  An out of season bird may have flown into the engine, three other planes were all off-schedule by a few minutes, the pier was supposed to have been removed a week earlier, it just doesn't add up.  Was something else at play here? Ford's testimony is even worse when he admits all this.  I can't tell if it is just all too sappy or handled poorly, but if Nelson was trying to deliver a message with this change in direction it didn't work.  I haven't read the source novel to know one way or another, but the ending disappoints on a lot of levels.

The redeeming factor through all the negatives is the impressive cast assembled here.  Ford is never flashy but is as reliable as always with Taylor making the most of his posthumous part...in character at least. Pleshette has a small but integral part (and looks great by the way). Also look for Nancy Kwan, Constance Towers, Jane Russell in a cameo as herself in 1945, Nehemiah Persoff, an uncredited Dorothy Malone, Max Showalter, Wally Cox and many more recognizable faces even if you don't know their name. Other than the cast and some nice-looking black and white camerawork, I struggled to get through this movie.  Potentially good but never amounts to anything much.

Fate is the Hunter <---trailer (1964): **/****

The French Line

In a time where everyone and everything has to be politically correct, it can be funny to look back on other times and see what was then considered censurable-material.  Where better to start than the 1950s where TV shows like Leave it to Beaver and Happy Days have helped convince the world that the decade was flawless with no imperfections?  The movie is 1953's The French Line, a musical -- a logical place to censor -- that now over 50 years later seems tame.

Who knows though, those 50s censors must have been pretty fast with the old trigger finger.  The main issue here by the censors and the Catholic Legion of Decency was star Jane Russell and the outfits -- or lack of -- she wore in the movie originally released in 3-D format.  The flick's tagline even said 'Jane Russell will knock both your eyes out!'  Pretty subtle if you ask me.  From the time she was introduced in The Outlaw, studios wanted to flaunt what God gave her, especially mega-millionaire and film producer/director Howard Hughes, and her roles typically had her in the skimpiest/tightest outfits around.  But now watching this in 2010, it seems tame to say the least.

With oil fields and millions of dollars to her name, Mary Carson (Russell) can't seem to find a husband.  All the men she meets are intimidated by her piles of money, including the latest fiance who bails days before the wedding.  She goes to New York to visit a friend, Annie(Mary McCarty) and thinks up a scheme to meet a man who will like her for her, not her money.  Mary's going to pose as a model while a model will pose as May. Her protector and ranch foreman, Waco Mosby (Arthur Hunnicutt), is worried somebody will take advantage of her and hires a Spanish/French playboy Pierre DuQuesne (Gilbert Roland) to tag along and keep an eye on her. But uh-oh, that crafty plan has an impact when Pierre confuses model for millionaire.

I typically avoid musicals like the plague unless they're holiday-themed or involve Bing Crosby in some way, but I liked the cast here so I gave it a try.  It plays like any number of 1950s comedies with plots so thin yet so ridiculous that they come across like extended episodes of I Love Lucy with Mary and Annie filling in nicely for Lucy and Ethel.  The 'find me a husband' story also feels very dated, very 50s, with feminists ripping their hair out at the very thought.  There's also one sticking point.  A rich woman who looks like Jane Russell can't find a husband?  I'll believe that when I see it.

Now whether I liked the cast or not, I always have an issue with musicals.  I know they're supposed to sing and do extravagant numbers every 10 or 15 minutes, but it never fails to make me laugh how they transition from conversation to a song and dance number.  Then, what do they do afterward. "Oh, so the song's over? What should we do now? Wanna get some dinner?"  That said, the numbers here aren't bad.  Russell was a pretty decent singer and even released several songs on top of her acting career.  Roland, not so much, who is an odd choice and a little old to play Russell's romantic interest.

As for the censors who were worried about Russell revealing too much, it's just funny.  Here's the non-edited version of this offensive scene.  The TCM version moves the camera back about 20 feet, and you can barely make Russell out.  I guess the censors didn't want Russell to actually knock people's eyes out in theaters across the country, but who knows for sure?  Check out the edited cut of that scene HERE. There's also this scandalous scene where she *gasp* takes a bath with plenty of split-second timing to actually avoid seeing anything you shouldn't see.  Pretty sneaky, movie editors and censors!

Extremely tame by today's standards, The French Line is still a mess of a movie.  Watch Roland make women swoon and get them drunk at the same time -- classy, huh? -- and Hunnicutt overact and scream to the point where you just want him to shut up.  A reviewer said this movie was made so moviegoers could check out Russell's anatomy, and that's about as dead-on a description as I can think of.  Russell is beautiful and not a bad actress/singer to boot.  Other than that, this one is a bomb.

The French Line <----trailer (1953): **/****

The Las Vegas Story

Cities like New York, L.A., and Chicago may have inspired more stories and probably more movies, but running a close fourth is Las Vegas, the City of Lights.  Movies like the original Ocean's 11, the remake, Vegas Vacation, The Hangover, and many others are set in Sin City.  Gambling, women, entertainment and debauchery left and right just translates well I guess.  Made right in the boom as the city became the city we know today, 1952's The Las Vegas Story presents a desert town full of love triangles, robberies, fraud, embezzlement, and of course, murder.

What caught my eye with this film noirish story was the cast, but I ended up liking it as a whole and not just because of the talent involved.  Certain outdoor scenes were obviously filmed in Las Vegas for any shots of the Strip or the hotels, but other than those, it's pretty clear most scenes were shot indoors at the Hollywood studios.  It's not a big deal really, but don't expect lots of live shots of the city.  The story starts off as one thing and ends up going down a very different route.  Lots of different elements must have been thrown into the blender, and when it came out, there was The Las Vegas Story.


Taking a cross country trip, husband and wife Lloyd Rollins (Vincent Price) and Linda Rollins (Jane Russell) make a stop in Las Vegas.  Lloyd is acting suspiciously, but that is overshadowed by Linda, who worked for years in the city as a lounge singer and left under less than ideal conditions.  She left behind her fiance who is now a detective on the LVPD, Dave Andrews (Victor Mature).  They awkwardly meet up with some baggage from their past, but that's just the beginning. Lloyd has a money issue (or lack of) and is quickly in the hole.  He pawns off one of Linda's necklaces, but the casino/club owner (Robert J. Wilke) he sold it to ends up dead and the necklace goes missing.  An insurance investigator (Brad Dexter) is on the case as well, where it seems anyone could be the murderer.

The plot detour works, making this love triangle more of a driving force to the story than the focus point.  Of course because of that, the story is all over the place, and not always in a good way.  It's still well-made and entertaining as these twists and detours lead to a great ending.  SPOILERS  The actual killer is Dexter's insurance investigator.  Dexter almost always played a heavy so it's no real surprise when it is revealed he is the killer.  Mature's Det. Andrews figures it out though and goes after Linda -- the kidnapped love of his life -- who Dexter took prisoner.  Watch the showdown HERE.   The finale features some great stuntwork involving a helicopter chasing a car in and around an abandoned airfield.  Even after the chase, there's a great cat and mouse game between Dexter and Mature in the wide open, dusty and windy expanses of this airfield.  END OF SPOILERS

Looking at the casting, RKO Studios didn't always have the biggest names in their movies, but that makes these type of movies appeal to me more.  Jane Russell is drop dead gorgeous, but too often that's all her roles required of her -- and to be fair, her character is neglected in the last 20 minutes.  When given the chance, she showed a knack for playing tough femme fatale who can pull off some humor and be sexy at the same time.  As for the looks department, 'Vegas Story' does display her proudly, including one silhouette shower scene that seems tame now.  A beauty on screen, she's often stereotyped as a body with no acting ability, but she is a strong actress with the right part.

Mature and Price provide some fireworks as the love interests.  As an actor, Mature is underrated in my book the same way Russell is.  He's got quite the presence when the camera focuses on him, and maybe he doesn't have the greatest range.  But if you do what you're good at and find those appropriate roles, who cares?  As a police detective scorned by his fiance, Mature gets to do the romantic scenes and the action too so it's the best of both worlds.  Price was a versatile actor and shows it here as a character who's motivations are left in the shadows until the end.  Horror, comedy, or thriller, Price could do them all.  Dexter is Dexter, and Jay C. Flippen has a funny part as a veteran cop who thinks he knows everything.

My only other complaint about this movie is Hoagy Carmichael being cast in a supporting role.  A bandleader, singer and composer, Carmichael plays Happy, a piano player who used to work with Russell's Linda.  Russell was a singer as well as an actress, and she had a decent voice but this also means she sings in her movies.  In some situations -- like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes -- a quick song is fine because it fits with the tone of the movie.  But a murder mystery noir full of deceit and infidelity?  Not so much.  Still, we get songs with Russell and Carmichael singing, like HERE, instead of focusing on the more interesting, more entertaining storyline.  Still, with all that said, the movie is worth a watch.  It's a mess of a movie, but an entertaining one at that.

The Las Vegas Story <---trailer (1952): ** 1/2 /****

Underwater!

In the 1950s, how did movie producers get audiences to come out to the theaters when families could just stay home and watch TV in the comforts of their living rooms? They went two ways, gimmicky, like 3-D, and for the spectacle. Show the audience something they couldn't or wouldn't see on the television, and they'd come out in droves.

And who better to go for the spectacle than producer Howard Hughes, almost the definition of eccentric millionaire always trying to top himself and his movies. That's what the Hughes-produced 1955 adventure Underwater! tried to do. With a story heavily reliant on underwater shooting as stunt doubles/swimmers explore coral reefs and shipwrecks, Hughes certainly gets points for creativity and effort. But the story never rises above any other typical sunken treasure story as the movie stays firmly in the B-movie genre.

Working in the Caribbean, Johnny Gray (Richard Egan) meets his old friend Dominic (Gilbert Roland). Dom convinces Johnny to go diving with him and while searching, the duo discovers a sunken wreck with clues to its identity; a Spanish ship from the 1600s that was supposed to be carrying a gold shipment back to Spain. After a lot of convincing with Johnny's wife Theresa (Jane Russell), the trio sets out to raise the money and equipment it will take to salvage the old wreck. They recruit a rich woman, Gloria (Lori Nelson) who owns a boat and quickly falls for Dominic, and a priest with knowledge of the Caribbean's sunken treasures, Father Cannon (Robert Keith). The search doesn't go smoothly though as a shark hunter (Joseph Calleia) is suspicious of their activities.

From reading director John Sturges' biography, it seems the script was never quite finished during the shooting. All producer Hughes was sure of was that the underwater diving footage would be the key part of the movie. The diving sequences are pretty good as stunt doubles for Russell, Egan and Roland explore the Caribbean depths. But everything else suffers because of it. All of the budget must have been spent on the cast and diving scenes because the rest of the movie has Gloria's boat in a tank with a pretty obvious painted background a few feet behind the ship. The same goes for indoor scenes with low budget boat and restaurant sets. You get a long shot of a beautiful bay with a boat and people visible, but the cut goes to a clearly indoor tank set.

Since he discovered Russell in the mid 1940s with The Outlaw, Hughes clearly had a bit of a crush on the young actress. The movies where they worked together seemed to be an excuse for Hughes to dress Russell up in any number of skimpy and/or tight outfits, and Underwater! is no different. No complaints because she's gorgeous, but just felt the need to point it out. Her Theresa has a Spanish accent that goes in and out from scene to scene, but is anyone actually paying attention to the dialogue? As old friends Johnny and Dominic, Egan and Roland look to be having a good time without having to put too much effort into it. Nelson and Keith are wasted in background parts, and Calleia doesn't have much to do as the shark hunter who pops in and out of the story.

There isn't much conflict throughout the story although efforts are made. Johnny and Theresa are newlyweds with some issues, but that's resolved. Dominic gets the bends late in the movie, but it's pretty clear they're not going to kill off Gilbert Roland. The story is just sort of there. It never tries to be anything other than a thin story around all the impressive underwater sequences.

That said, I enjoyed it. Underwater! serves more as a vacation brochure than anything, and the cast does seem to be having a good time. Besides Jane Russell in a swimsuit is nothing to scoff at. A classic by no means, but definitely a movie you can shut your brain off and enjoy for 90 minutes.

Underwater! <------trailer (1955): ** 1/2 /****