This is in some ways a very interesting movie, though undermined by its own mistake in incorporating a dull, lengthy flashback. Also using the cheapo color process Cinecolor, which is not good on dark interiors--or on most faces. (They wisely avoided night exteriors.) The dimly lit interior of the hotel night club where Patricia Morison sings and spies and their handlers meet (not very clandestinely; where did they learn their tradecraft?) is so murky in long shot that you can barely make out the actors.
However, Gene Raymond as US secret agent Steve Roarke (it may be significant that he has the same surname as the hero of Ayn Rand's 1943 schlock novel The Fountainhead) is trying to (1) foil Russian agents and (2) romance his on again-off again mistress, the nightclub thrush and freelance spy played by Patricia Morison (by far the most talented actor in the movie). The scenes of intrigue in and around the hotel are well handled, all things considered. But the main fault in Frederick Stephani's script is that the back story--of how Gene Raymond and Sigrid Gurie met and fell in love during the War four years earlier--is curiously inert and dull, taking up too much screen time. It was surely inspired by the flashback to Bogie and Bergman in Paris in Casablanca, but that were relatively brief and to the point and B & B had a chemistry which is sadly lacking between Raymond and Gurie. Also, while Raymond is surprisingly good as what later came to be called "a burnt-out case," Gurie, though indeed a beauty, is not much of an actress. Later on, when we see her captured and held prisoner by the evil Russkies, her trying to act distraught is embarrassing to watch, a performance which would be a disgrace to a small-town high school play.
Morison, despite being unflatteringly photographed (the Cinecolor gives her a sickly, waxy look), steals every scene she appears in. Her first scene with old flame Raymond seems to push the envelope of what was acceptably carnal in 1948. After first playing haughty and Hard to Get, she suddenly relaxes and gives him a Steamy Kiss, and the scene goes dark. But before long the interesting relationship between her and Raymond is forced to take a back seat to the not very interesting flashback. She comes back for a believable and amusingly bitchy confrontation with Gurie near the end. (Only one of the two women survives, and I'm sure you can guess which one has to be sacrificed to the Hays Code.)
Note on sexual politices, c. 1948: After Patricia does a song she is invited to sit at the table of Ana Sokolova, a grotesque butch lesbian Soviet spymaster. Pat fences with her wittily and rejects her offer of spying for Russia, supposedly because she is not offered enough money but, not very subtextually, because the women is "an ugly dyke." (The scene is probably inspired by a scene in Rosselini's Open City, involving a lesbian Nazi.)
In general, director Reinhardt and art director Al Ybarra do a good job of recreating what seems an effective atmospheric mise-en-scene to scenes shot on the stages of Churubasco Studios in Mexico City, and the secondary spies are reasonably convincing, even if not very colorful or much characterized. However, Reinhardt does not seem to handle action scenes well. For instance, a scene at the end where Gene Raymond kills two Soviety flop right over in an unintentionally funny way. (Maybe the schedule was too rushed to retake the scene?) would say it's worth watching, especially if you are a fan of Patricia Morison.
1 out of 1 found this helpful