HURRICANE SMITH. Paramount Pictures, 1952. Yvonne De Carlo, John Ireland, James Craig, Forrest Tucker, Lyle Bettger, Richard Arlen. Screenplay by Frank Gruber, based on the novel Hurricane Williams by Gordon Ray Young (1922).

   Yvonne De Carlo was a special kind of beauty, the kind that turns men’s minds to mush. (If not lust.) She is the only woman in this movie, and when she wears a low-cut of-the-shoulder blouse, there is very little mystery as to what keeps it up.

   And watching her stay inside her clothes provides for about 95% of the suspense involved. This sailing adventure of the South Seas is filled with slavers, sharks, mutineers, and a fortune in buried gold, but of actual story, there is very little.


— Reprinted from Mystery*File #24, August 1990. (very slightly revised).


Editorial Update:   Of the book this movie is said to be based on, I have not been able to find an actual copy for sale, only several Print on Demand versions. Hurricane Williams appeared in several short stories and serialized novels in the pulp magazine Adventure between 1918 and 1931, but none with this specific title.