Tales of the Easily Distracted: multiple writers

Ever see a movie that seems like a typical genre flick, but as you watch it, you realize it’s got a mind of its own, and it’s so wild and crazy and all-but-off-the rails that you can’t help loving it? Well, the 1951 RKO comedy-noir His Kind of Woman is my kind of movie! John Farrow (The Big Clock, Wake Island, and Hondo, among many others) gets the directing credit, though Richard Fleischer was responsible for considerable tweaking—re-shoots, even! Lots of writers involved, too, including Frank Fenton and Jack Leonard, with Gerald Drayson Adams’ original story getting credit as well. Seems like everyone gets a little credit here!

In His Kind of Woman, Robert Mitchum is at his ",So-hot-he’s-cool, so, so cool he's hot, with his hot bedroom-eyed best as Dan Milner, a rambler and a gambler, literally. Dan’s easy to like; how can you not trust a guy who sticks with milk or ginger ale instead of booze? (Of course, it’s implied that Dan has gotten in trouble with liquor in the past, but I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.) Dan is the kind of likable lug who really should get in the habit of looking before leaping. He seems to have been pretty successful at making a living from gambling (wish Dan was a real guy who could’ve given my late dad pointers), but Lady Luck hasn’t been returning his calls lately (dames—sheesh!). Dan has a funny feeling there’s more to his recent string of nigh-Kafkaesque mishaps than cold dice, especially when he’s accosted by a couple of smooth-talking, suit-clad jaspers: Corley (the uncredited Paul Frees, whose voice is well known to Team Bartilucci from both animated and live-action films, including another RKO classic, The Thing from Another World) and Thompson (Charles McGraw from The Narrow Margin and The Killers, who also narrates the film in early scenes). Corley and Thompson offer Dan a cool fifty grand to go to The Morros Lodge, a fabulous Mexican resort (filmed in Baja California) and await further instructions, no questions asked (well, few questions, anyway). Dan’s not entirely comfortable with the arrangement, but he sure can use the dough. Wonder if Dan’s ever heard a little story about a Trojan horse….?

Dan rubs Lenore the right way!

While waiting for his plane to Mexico, tough guy Dan is smitten in spite of himself when he meets the lovely, sassy, ostensibly rich Lenore Brent (Jane Russell). She’s waiting, too, passing the time by displaying her great pipes, among her other charms (producer Howard Hughes never missed an opportunity to showcase the ravishing Russell’s pulchritude). I always enjoy hearing Jane Russell sing; she has a nice snappy way with a song, and she’s both sultry and jaunty as she sings “Five Little Miles from San Berdoo” and the torchy “You’ll Know.” Despite their characters’ mutual cat-and-mouse routine, you can see the electricity crackling between Russell and Mitchum. There they are, sexy and playful as all get-out, and nobody’s naked (though they sometimes come close, at least by late 1940s/early 1950s standards)! By all accounts, Mitchum and Russell were good friends offscreen, and only friends. (In fact, after Mitchum’s death in 1997, Russell and Mitchum’s wife Dorothy scattered his ashes at sea.)

With that hat, Lenore can't help bewitching Dan!

Back at the ranch, er, lodge, the fun in the sun apparently includes role-playing games as well, because each vacationer Dan meets at this gorgeous resort seems to be trying to be someone else! Lenore may or may not be an heiress, and her real name may or may not be Liz Brady; Bill Lusk (Tim Holt of The Magnificent Ambersons and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre) might be a drunken tourist, or he might be a wily Fed. Myron Winton (Jim Backus, whose many roles included Rebel Without A Cause and TV’s Gilligan’s Island, not to mention the voice of Mr. Magoo) is a businessman who turns out to be a card sharp, or maybe just a plain old cheater. Then there’s mysterious author Martin Kraft (John Mylong) who only seems interested in playing chess with himself (“Maybe he hates to lose,” Dan suggests).

"Who's the rat saying I look like David O. Selznick?"

I also like that Dan is basically a decent guy with a kind heart underneath his sleepy-eyed shrewdness, like when he helps the young newlywed couple win their money back from sneaky so-and-so Winton. Maybe that’s why Lusk finally ditches his lush routine and reveals to Dan that he’s an immigration officer pursuing underworld kingpin Nick Ferraro (Raymond Burr in one of his juiciest over-the-top bad-guy roles before Perry Mason made him a TV star). Turns out the only thing Kraft writes is prescriptions: he’s really a plastic surgeon who was himself deported, like Nick. Seems Dan’s role in all this is the ultimate face-off: the doc’s supposed to put Dan’s face on the evil Nick so he can sneak back into the U.S., after which Nick and his boys will bump Dan off so Nick can keep his secret! Yikes!

Dan's snooping has the blinds leading the blinds!

I’ll admit the mix of film noir suspense and zany comedy gets a bit lopsided at times, but I was so caught up in HKoW that it seemed churlish to quibble! I liked the nice background details, too, like the sarcastic radio announcer ragging on Ferraro. Lots of our favorite uncredited supporting players and bit players are in HKoW, too, such as Mamie Van Doren, Robert Cornthwaite (clean-shaven and almost unrecognizable from his role as the exhausted, going-mad scientist in The Thing from Another World), and Anthony Caruso (The Asphalt Jungle, among others) as one of Nick’s vicious strong-arm boys. On a related note, it’s interesting to see the difference between early 1950s and 21st-century beefcake. As I said in my I Wake up Screaming post, today’s muscular hunks are so ridiculously ripped, you'd cut yourself if you touched them!

Dan and Mark saved Lenore the balcony seats!

Ironically, one of the most sincere characters in HKoW is Vincent Price’s character, the flamboyant movie star Mark Cardigan. He thinks he’s gonna run off with his mistress Lenore. Surprise! Wifey Helen (Marjorie Reynolds of Ministry of Fear) shows up, with her attorney in tow. Price is clearly having a blast, and I don’t just mean with his hunting rifle! Even with Mark’s goofy airs, he saves the day, bless him (with a few hilarious fits and starts along the way). Every cast member is great fun to watch, though there’s no denying that Price steals the show as Mark. He basks in the spotlight and he’s a big ham, but a tasty one. Even better, Mark truly puts his money where his Shakespeare-trained mouth is when Dan’s in danger. The scene where Mark tries to squeeze every volunteer at the resort into the boat to rescue Dan is laugh-out-loud funny!

Got a gambling problem? Don't call these guys!

Over at the TCM Web site, Price wrote that Mitchum was “heaven to work with...one of those diamond in the rough types in whose character you can’t find any sort of holes because he’s so open and honest...He’s a complete anachronism. He claims he doesn’t care about acting, but he’s an extraordinary actor. He’s one of that group of people in Hollywood who are such extraordinary personalities that people forget they’re marvelous actors.” Moreover, Mitchum was generous on the set, treating about twenty members of the cast and crew to lunch in his bungalow every day, and “on several occasions when he realized his stand-in had had a rough night, he stood in for the stand-in.” Don’t you love it when actors you like turn out to be decent folks, too?