His Kind of Woman (1951)

Robert Mitchum is one of my many noir favorites, and his character, Dan Milner, in His Kind of Woman has one of my favorite lines in all of film noir. Milner is a professional gambler (like Steve Maddux in Her Kind of Man). He makes his living in a profession that was illegal in the United States when the film was released in 1951. He is on a losing streak in his illegal profession, so the claim at the start of the film that he owes money couldn’t come at a worse time. And it’s bound to cause all sorts of problems for Milner because he supposedly owes money to a shady character. In a situation like this, he doesn’t have much recourse, at least when it comes to legal options.

Very early in the film, Milner comes home to three strangers playing cards in his apartment. One of them tells him, “Ollie Chester wants the dough.” (Ollie Chester is never mentioned again in the film, and viewers never meet him. He many not even exist, as far as Milner and the story are concerned.) Milner says that he doesn’t know what the man is talking about, but that turns out to be irrelevant. The three men are in Milner’s apartment to collect the money, no matter what. Milner is beaten for refusing to pay, and the three men leave him on his living room floor.

Milner is still on his living room floor when his telephone starts to ring . . . and ring . . . and ring. He finally gets up to answer the phone, and viewers hear only his side of the conversation: “Hello? . . . Yeah, this is Milner . . . No, I’m not busy, Corley . . . No, I was just getting ready to take my tie off . . . and wondering whether I should hang myself with it.”

Robert Mitchum delivers these lines with a combination of conviction, resignation, and deadpan humor. I laugh every time I see the film and hear these lines. Lest you think I am callous, His Kind of Woman is a film noir with an odd combination of humor, snappy dialogue, violence, and dark themes, but the humor and the snappy dialogue are already evident by the time Milner arrives home to find three strangers in his living room.

The film actually starts with a voice-over narrator (Thompson, played by Charles McGraw), who explains how the film’s narrative really starts in Naples, Italy. Ferraro is staying in his villa overlooking the Bay of Naples. He wants to return to the United States, but he cannot because he was deported. He leads a crime syndicate, and he is still the head of gambling and vice in the United States despite his deportation. Ferraro wants greater control over the money he makes from his so-called businesses. He has a plan to visit Morro’s Lodge in Mexico to trade places with Dan Milner, to take over his identity so he can reenter the United States. Whether Milner survives this identity transfer is the least of Ferraro’s worries.

Corley’s phone call brings Milner to the home of someone named Arnold. Arnold is funding Milner’s trip to Mexico and Morro’s Lodge. (Another point that is never clarified is Arnold’s relationship to Ferraro and to Milner. I never understood why he is in charge of getting Milner from point A [the United States] to point B [Mexico].) At this point in the film, neither Milner nor the viewers know what Milner’s trip to Mexico will entail. Milner knows that he will make a quick $50,000, but that’s all he knows before he leaves the country and flies to Nogales, Mexico. At his first stop in Mexico, he meets a singer named Lenore Brent. Both are heading to Morro’s Lodge, where the two of them meet several other characters. Some are involved in Ferraro’s plans, and some are merely distractions that provide some of the film’s humor.

(This article about His Kind of Woman contains spoilers.)

Milner finally learns at Morro’s Lodge what is expected of him, but he is not willing to go through with Ferraro’s bargain. This angers Ferraro, and he intends to get rid of Milner even though he now has to find someone else’s identity to steal. Milner is now more dangerous to Ferraro because he knows too much. Much of the violence in the film is directed at Milner, and much of it is the result of Ferraro’s displeasure with Milner’s decisions.

His Kind of Woman is a long film (almost two hours), especially for a film noir. I must admit that I found the running time a bit too long. The last third or so of the film features alternating sequences between Ferraro’s desire to inflict pain on Milner and the crusade by Mark Cardigan, an actor and fellow Morro Lodge vacationer, to save Milner. For me, the humor in the Cardigan sequence falls a little flat in comparison to the violence and sadism on display by Ferraro and his henchmen. The most humorous and witty bits of dialogue usually involve Robert Mitchum’s character in other contexts: Dan Milner’s conversations with Lenore Brent, his exchanges with Mark Cardigan before he is in any real danger, and his interactions with supporting characters in about the first half of the film.

The DVD I borrowed came with commentary by professor Vivian Sobchack, and she provides lots of details about Hugh Hefner’s involvement in the film and the ways that he got around or simply ignored the production code that was in force at the time. It’s well worth a listen. You can also find the film at the Internet Archive in English with Spanish subtitles, but I do believe that getting the DVD would be the best option.

Here are just a few of the points made by Sobchack in her DVD commentary:

◊ Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell were the biggest stars at RKO at the time. Jane Russell was a commanding presence on-screen that Robert Mitchum could match. Mitchum could match Russell’s “hard glamor,” as it was called at the time.

◊ Jane Russell was a protegee of Howard Hughes. She does her own singing in the film.

◊ Raymond Burr was cast after the film was finished. His character is based on real-life mobster Lucky Luciano.

◊ Joseph Breen of the Production Code Administration (PCA) objected to Mexican and Latin American stereotypes, but many of them remained in the film. The United States was following the Good Neighbor Policy at the time the film was made. Breen also objected to the violence, but it stayed, although viewers don’t see much of it directly. Viewers never see Dan Milner being beaten by the three strangers in his apartment at the beginning of the film, and they never see Bill Lusk killed by Thompson.

◊ Howard Hughes made his money in aviation. Planes are featured in the film, even when they are unnecessary for moving the plot forward. Lusk, the federal immigration agent, is the pilot coming in for a landing at Morro Lodge during the storm, and the sequence about his landing is another instance of showing aviation that doesn’t really advance the plot.

◊ Howard Hughes loved the character of Mark Cardigan and helped rewrite much of the second half of the film to give the character more to do on-screen and to build up Cardigan’s character. He also liked Vincent Price in the role. Cardigan’s in-film movie clips are a parody of Errol Flynn and Errol Flynn’s roles, and Cardigan is very appreciative of his own performance.

◊ Howard Hughes didn’t want to make message films and sent a memo to that effect to everyone at RKO when he bought the studio. Some of the supporting characters even voice this type of opinion:

• Myron Winton: “People don’t go to the movies to see how miserable the world is. They want to eat popcorn and be happy.”

• Martin Krafft: “It [Cardigan’s movie] has a message no pigeon would carry.”

His Kind of Woman is one of those films that could go into several categories: film noir, humor, adventure, romance. It’s a bit hard to pigeonhole, which might turn away some viewers. I enjoyed it more on subsequent viewings, and it’s worth seeing more than once, as it is with so many films noir, to catch all the details. It’s a must-see for fans of Robert Mitchum because he doesn’t disappoint. His character has most of the best lines. In fact, I would say that he carries the film, even with the strong supporting cast around him.

August 21, 1951 (Chicago, Illinois, premiere), August 25, 1952 (United States), release dates  •  Directed by John Farrow, Richard Fleischer  •  Screenplay by Frank Fenton, Jack Leonard, Earl Felton, Howard Hughes  •  Based on a story by Gerald Drayson Adams  •  Music by Leigh Harline  •  Edited by Frederic Knudtson, Eda Warren  •  Cinematography by Harry J. Wild

Robert Mitchum as Dan Milner  •  Jane Russell as Lenore Brent  •  Vincent Price as Mark Cardigan  •  Tim Holt as Bill Lusk  •  Charles McGraw as Thompson  •  Marjorie Reynolds as Helen Cardigan  •  Raymond Burr as Nick Ferraro  •  Leslie Banning as Jennie Stone  •  Richard Bergren as Milton Stone  •  Jim Backus as Myron Winton  •  Philip Van Zandt as Jose Morro, the resort’s manager  •  John Mylong as Martin Krafft  •  Carleton G. Young as Gerald Hobson  •  Paul Frees as Corley

Distributed by RKO Radio Pictures  •  Produced by RKO Radio Pictures

Where Danger Lives (1950)

I have seen Where Danger Lives several times now, and more than once, I have found myself wondering, What if the story were told from Margo Lannington’s, the femme fatale’s, point of view? Lannington is not so easy to pin down because she is more complicated—and thus more interesting—than the usual femme fatale. She’s not just conniving and manipulative, a liar and a cheat (as if all that wouldn’t be enough); she also suffers from mental illness. I think the few details revealed about her background in Where Danger Lives would have been the basis for great story.

(This article about Where Danger Lives contains the most important spoilers.)

The film starts with an ambulance arriving at a hospital in San Francisco, where Dr. Jeff Cameron works. His girlfriend Julie is a nurse and is also on the hospital staff. Dr. Cameron is a much-loved doctor who is cares for children and shows a great deal of empathy for them. He is obviously a sympathetic character, in other words, not an unsympathetic homme fatale or a criminal. He is also the doctor called to examine the patient in the ambulance: a woman who attempted suicide. A man accompanied her to the hospital, but he is not her husband, and he disappears soon after their arrival and before Dr. Cameron has a chance to talk to him. The woman, the patient, gives her name as Margo.

Dr. Cameron discovers that Margo left a phony last name and address. Another doctor tells him that her last name is not Locksley and she doesn’t live at 3164 Lake Street (Lake Street ends in the 2900 block). But after her discharge, she sends a wire to Dr. Cameron at the hospital: “I owe you an explanation. Please see me tonight if you can. Eight o’clock at 112 Sea Cliff. Please try. Margo.” It isn’t just fate that draws Dr. Cameron to visit Margo. She is his patient, and he still has a professional interest in seeing that she is in good health. But he enters a gray area with his decision to visit her at home. By the time he sees her again at her home, in her evening gown, he seems to have made up his mind about her.

At Sea Cliff, Dr. Cameron learns that Margo’s real name is Margo Lannington. He tells Margo that all suicides and attempted suicides have to be reported to the police, even those under fictitious names. She protests; she is sure that she will be just fine. But he dials the phone, and she grabs for it. He stops her, and when their eyes meet, the audience has the second clue that he is in it for the long haul. And it turns out that he isn’t dialing the police; he is calling his girlfriend Julie to break their date.

There’s a bit of a jump in time at this point: Dr. Cameron has started an affair with Margo. (I’ll call him Jeff from now on; Margo is on a first-name basis with him by now.) He meets her at a tiki bar. From their conversation, viewers know that they have seen each other at least a few times. Margo tells Jeff that her father wants to take her to Nassau and that she won’t be able to see him, of course, while they’re away. And did she mention that they are leaving in the next twenty-four hours? It’s a shock to Jeff. After Margo leaves the tiki bar, he drinks by himself and decides to talk to Margo and confront her father.

Back again at Sea Cliff, Jeff learns that Margo is actually living with her husband, Frederic Lannington, not with her father, as she had been telling him all along. Jeff leaves, but he rushes back into the house when he hears Margo scream. She says that Lannington has attacked her, pulling her earring from her ear and leaving it torn and bleeding. Margo wants to leave with Jeff, but Lannington has other ideas and hits him over the head with a poker. Jeff defends himself, and Frederic Lannington is knocked unconscious when he falls to the floor. Jeff goes to the bathroom to get some water for Lannington and to wash his face. He is dizzy and groggy, and he has trouble walking. He collapses on the way back to the living room. When Jeff finally makes it back, Lannington is dead.

Jeff can’t be sure how Lannington died. Did he hit his head in the fall near the fireplace? Did he hit Lannington hard enough to injure him fatally? Is his death an accident or murder? Jeff cannot answer any of these questions because he cannot think clearly. He has a head injury of his own, and it is obvious that it has had an effect on him.

Margo convinces Jeff not to call the police. She thinks that they will rule Lannington’s death a murder. Margo asks him, “Who’d want a doctor who killed a man?” He says that it was self-defense, but he admits that he doesn’t know how he will be able to prove that. The fact that Jeff sustained a head injury makes his situation even more complicated because he can’t think clearly. The extent of Jeff’s injury becomes important later in the narrative when he is trying to escape to Mexico with Margo. It also seems to dilute a lot of his responsibility for the decisions he makes after the attack, so much so that Julie takes him back.

Jeff Cameron is the main character and the only one to go through any sort of transformation. He has a loyal girlfriend, but he becomes obsessed with Margo and refuses to let her go. His head injury blurs his thinking and makes him more susceptible to Margo’s machinations. His physical condition worsens as he and Margo flee toward Mexico, but it isn’t until he is partially paralyzed and they are close to the border that he finally sees Margo clearly: She is a pathological liar, she’s had many men, she’s hatched this plan a long time ago because she has a stash of her husband’s money waiting in Mexico. He also realizes that she’s the one who killed her husband because the husband was still breathing when Jeff went to wash his face in the house at Sea Cliff. When his physical condition is at its worst, it forces him to come to terms with his limitations and to be more realistic—about himself and about Margo.

Where Danger Lives is another example of Hollywood using psychology as a theme in film, but neither Jeff nor the viewers see this aspect of Margo right away. Once viewers hear about her condition on a radio newscast about her husband’s suspicious death (viewers know more about it before Jeff does), Margo becomes frantic. She pulls a gun out of her purse and is frightened when someone knocks on the door of the room she is sharing with Jeff. The significance of her symptoms (her suicide attempt, her lying, her waking from a nightmare screaming in the car going to Mexico) becomes much clearer. I found myself completely engrossed in Margo’s story the way that it was told: from Jeff’s perspective. The story in the film is Jeff Cameron’s so, of course, it is told from his perspective. But I think the factors leading up to Margo’s psychiatric treatment would have made a better story. I enjoy the film just as much every time I see it, but I have this nagging suspicion that it missed an opportunity for a better story in Margo’s situation.

Claude Rains is great as the femme fatale’s wronged and very angry husband. Robert Mitchum is a noir favorite of mine, and he is fantastic as Dr. Jeff Cameron. The role is very physical because he has to portray someone suffering from a concussion and its effects (partial paralysis, confusion). In the climax of the film, he struggles to pursue Margo as she makes her last attempt to cross the border to Mexico alone. She thought he had died in their rented room because she had placed a pillow over his face, just as she had done with her husband. So his appearance on the street at night comes as a shock to her. But she still has her gun, and she attempts to shoot Jeff to finish the job she had already started.

Every time that I have tried to write about Where Danger Lives, I have come smack up against writer’s block. Once I realized, however, that I was more intrigued by Margo’s place in the story, writing about the film seemed so much easier. As much as I enjoy the film and all the actors in it, I think Margo’s story is the most interesting.

July 6, 1950, release date  •  Directed by John Farrow  •  Screenplay by Charles Bennett  •  Based on a story by Leo Rosen  •  Music by Roy Webb  •  Edited by Eda Warren  •  Cinematography by Nicholas Musuraca

Robert Mitchum as Dr. Jeff Cameron  •  Faith Domergue as Margo Lannington  •  Claude Rains as Frederick Lannington  •  Maureen O’Sullivan as Julie Dorn  •  Charles Kemper as the Postville police chief  •  Ralph Dumke as Klauber, the pawnbroker  •  Billy House as Bogardus, the Postville justice of the peace  •  Harry Shannon as Dr. Maynard  •  Philip Van Zandt as Milo DeLong, the carnival owner  •  Jack Kelly as Dr. James Mullenbach, Jeff’s hospital associate  •  Lillian West as Mrs. Bogardus  •  Ray Teal as Sheriff Joe Borden  •  Tol Avery as Honest Hal, car seller

Produced by RKO Radio Pictures  •  Distributed by RKO Radio Pictures