lonely, worried, and sorry
by Douglas Messerli
I think most critics today would agree with early commentators of
Josef von Sternberg’s exotic adventure-tale Macao
who found the story completely unbelievable and the direction confused. In the
midst of shooting, producer Howard Hughes found the narrative plot so
incoherent, in fact, that he got rid of the original director, replacing him
with Nicholas Ray, and asking actor Robert Mitchum to help create some logical
links between scenes, a process that almost seems to have doomed the work to
critical disdain.
There is no doubt that
a great deal of this film, set in the exotic Macao, the former Portuguese
colony now part of China, is pure hokum. Without any true explanation three
seemingly suspicious people find themselves on a boat heading toward Macao, each
keeping something from the others. Nick Cochran (Robert Mitchum), a former US
serviceman, has a mysterious secret which involves, evidently, a murder and a
red-head; Julie Benson (Jane Russell), a woman of many past careers—including even
fortunetelling (the source of her ability is knowing that everyone is “lonely,
worried, and sorry.”)—is now a nightclub singer inexplicably on the run or in
search of something she can’t identify (as she cynically tells the local
gangster Vincent Holloran: “my trust fund ran out”); and Lawrence Trumble, a
self-admitted traveling salesman, who deals in silk stockings and contraband,
but secretly, we soon discover, is the most duplicitous of the three, being a
detective trying to lure the Macao-casino owner, Halloran (Brad Dexter), beyond
the three mile limit in order to arrest him for numerous crimes, including the
robbery of an priceless diamond necklace which he has sent on to Hong Kong. And
then there’s Halloran’s current girlfriend, Margie (Gloria Grahame) who serves
at times as his henchman, but at other times becomes an ally to Cochran.
Hardly have these
three exchanged verbal barbs than they are investigated, threatened, and nearly
arrested, Cochran quickly being perceived by Halloran as the detective, while
Benson is swept up into his personal world when she is suddenly offered a job
singing in his casino. And so the plot, we quickly realize will be a playing
out of their roles, confused by the evil forces in charge of decadent city.
Despite the producers’ determination, however, to get that story properly
sorted out, it really doesn’t matter. We already know that someone or everyone
will attempt to murder Cochran, that Halloran will fall in love with Benson,
and that Benson will fall in love with Cochran, while Halloran will surely be
lured out of “the three mile limit” into his arrestment—or at least some
variation of that!
If that is your focus, however, you might
as well forget it. This is not Casablanca; in Macao you get robbed even before you get off the boat. What it is, in
hindsight, is a first-rate film, filled with a brilliant series of sarcastic-leaden
and sexually charged interchanges between the sultry Benson and the always
laconic Cochran, a dialogue, at times, that outshines many of the seemingly
more sophisticated comedies of Garson Kanin, Preston Sturges, and others of the
1940s. And in some respects, one might describe this 1952 film, along with
Orson Welles’ 1958 work, Touch of Evil, as the last of the great American film noirs. In one of their earliest encounters,
for example, Cochran challenges the icy Benson: “Why don’t you take that chip
off your shoulder?”
After another icy encounter, Julie sends Nick flowers, resulting
in this interchange:
Nick Cochran: Thanks for the flowers.
Julie Benson: [sarcastically] I couldn’t afford a
wreath.
Even minor characters get clever lines: as Lt. Sebastian (Thomas
Gomez), who notes of Julie Benson: “Besides her obvious talents, she also
sings.” And Halloran and Margie have a similarly light interchange:
cheapen you.
Margie: Yeah. But what a way to be cheapened.
Or as Margie quips to Nick (who the night before has lost all of
his money, even with loaded dice): “You’re up early for a loser.”
At others times this
film comes alive as a dark and sinister adventure tale, as Halloran’s murderous
stooges chase Nick through the darkly lit streets, across rooftops, and through
a whole flotilla of net-covered moonlit Chinese junks, a thrillingly shot
episode that ends with the “accidental” stabbing and murder of Trumble—utterly
ironic since the pursuers think they have got the wrong man. The inevitable
battle between Halloran and Cochran, which occurs half on boat and half in the
water, is brilliantly staged, as, in the end, the police scoop up the evil
casino owner, and Cochran swims back, like an early James Bond, to collect his
prize, Julie, still aboard.
Macao may not be a profound movie, but it is most certainly an
entertaining one, that perhaps, had both the film’s makers and critics been
less focused on story, they might have recognized it for its numerous
qualities. I’ve now seen this film three times, and I’ll gladly watch it again
just to watch the sparks fly from the positively and negatively-charged leads
through their loaded verbal comments. For if Corcoran-Mitchum is a born loser
with dice, he is a born seducer with words: “My fatal charm. Never
misses—except with women.” Benson-Russell’s response: “Well you annoyed me a
little when you belted me with that blonde!”
Frankly, I’ll take
that kind of language over a fussy plot any day!
Los
Angeles, September 7, 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment