Macao (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Macao

Theatrical poster
Directed by Josef von Sternberg
Nicholas Ray
Produced by Howard Hughes
Samuel Bischoff
Alex Gottlieb
Written by Story:
Robert Creighton Williams
Screenplay:
Stanley Rubin
Bernard C. Schoenfeld
Robert Mitchum
Starring Robert Mitchum
Jane Russell
Music by Anthony Collins
Jule Styne
Cinematography Harry J. Wild
Editing by Samuel E. Beetley
Robert Golden
Distributed by RKO Radio Pictures
Release date(s) April 30, 1952
Running time 81 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

Macao (1952) is a black-and-white film noir adventure film directed by Josef von Sternberg and Nicholas Ray. Producer Howard Hughes fired director von Sternberg while the film was being shot and then hired director Nicholas Ray to finish it. The drama features Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, William Bendix, and others.[1]

When many of Von Sternberg's scenes made no sense dramatically, Ray asked Mitchum to write several bridging scenes. Cinematographer Harry J. Wild worked on the film and filming was completed in 1950 but the film was not released until 1952. Only stock footage was shot on location in Hong Kong and Macau.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Three strangers arrive at the port of Macao on the same boat: Nick (Robert Mitchum), a world-traveling, cynical-but-honest everyman, Julie (Jane Russell), an equally cynical, sultry night club singer, and Lawrence Trumbel (William Bendix), a traveling salesman who deals in both silk stockings and contraband.

At the center of the plot is a jewel-smuggling casino owner and his neglected croupier girl friend. The "international police" want to get him beyond the safety of Macao's three-mile limit, where they can arrest him. A New York police detective goes undercover in an attempt to force his hand. The casino owner mistakes Nick for the police officer.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Critical reception

Film critic Dennis Schwartz lauded the casting of Jane Russell and Robert Mitchum, writing, "A wonderfully tongue-in-cheek scripted RKO adventure story directed by Josef von Sternberg...Jane Russell enthralls as she gets romanced by the laconic Mitchum, and they create movie magic together through their brilliant nuanced performances. The sultry actress was never better, as she belts out a few torch songs, tosses insults at Mitchum with natural ease, shows her romantic side and looks right through the leering bad guys of Macao as if they didn't exist. She's the good-bad girl, while he's the hard-luck innocent who can't even win when playing with loaded dice. They're both film noir characters, who Jane sums up when she tells her man: 'Everybody's lonely, worried, and sorry. Everybody's looking for something.' If you are looking for an underrated film noir gem--that somehow got swept under the rug--this is it!"[2]

When the film was first released, Bosley Crowther, film critic for The New York Times, lambasted the drama, writing, "All the other ingredients, including Miss Russell's famed physique, are pretty much the same as have been tumbled into previous cheesecakes with Jane and Bob...Macao is a flimflam and no more—a flimflam designed for but one purpose and that is to mesh the two stars. The story itself is pedestrian—a routine and standardized account of a guy getting caught in the middle of a cops-and-robbers thing. And except for some well-placed direction by Josef von Sternberg in a couple of scenes, especially in a "chase" among nets and rowboats, the job is conventional in style...'A fabulous speck on the earth's surface'—that's Macao, the place and the film."[3]

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Macao at the Internet Movie Database.
  2. ^ Schwartz, Dennis Ozus' World Movie Reviews, film review, January 13, 2005. Last accessed: January 15, 2008.
  3. ^ Crowther, Bosley. The New York Times, film review, May 1, 1952. Last accessed: January 15, 2008.

[edit] External links


v • d • e
American films of the 1950s
1950 • 1951 • 1952 • 1953 • 1954 • 1955 • 1956 • 1957 • 1958 • 1959
Languages