Wed 6 Jan 2021
A Movie! Book!! Review by Dan Stumpf: HIS KIND OF WOMAN (1952).
Posted by Steve under Crime Films , Reference works / Biographies , Reviews[10] Comments
HIS KIND OF WOMAN. RKO, 1952. Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, Vincent Price, Tim Holt, Raymond Burr, and Jim Backus. Written by Frank Fenton and Jack Leonard. Directed by John Farrow and Richard Fleischer (uncredited.) Available on DVD and for rent from Vudu and Amazon Prime, among others.
RICHARD FLEISCHER – Just Tell Me When to Cry. Carroll & Graf, hardcover, 1993.
I always thought of HIS KIND OF WOMAN as a lop-sided little movie, no great shakes, but modestly enjoyable. I went out with a girl like that once. Then I read Fleischer’s memoir, and now I see it in a whole different light. A good book can do that for you.
Briefly, WOMAN deals with the travails of Dan Milner (Robert Mitchum) a down-on-his-luck gambler lured to a Mexican resort where everyone seems to be playing a part, except for the one genuine actor, Mark Cardigan (Vincent Price.)
Turns out the whole thing has been engineered by deported gangster Raymond Burr, who means to kill Mitchum and enter the country under his name. Yeah, it sounds over-complicated to me, too. I mean how hard can it be to get a slightly irregular passport? But that’s the story, and Bob ends up on Ray’s yacht, tied, tortured, running, fighting, running, shooting, running, ducking, and generally making mayhem in some remarkably grim moments, fraught with tension—
–Or they would be, except that the movie keeps cutting back to Vincent Price and his genuinely funny attempts at rescue. The comedy works, the grim stuff works, but side by side, they keep undercutting each other. I kind of like it myself, but I have to say on any objective level it just doesn’t work.
So like I say, I always thought of this as a fun little misfire, till I read Richard Fleischer’s engaging memoir, JUST TELL ME WHEN TO CRY, which devotes a whole chapter to WOMAN and reveals that the damn thing cost almost a million dollars.
It seems director John Farrow finished this film, and like all RKO movies at the time, it went to studio owner Howard Hughes to be screened before release. Hughes thought the ending could be punched up a little, so he called Fleischer in, and Fleischer agreed, maybe it could. So Hughes made some suggestions, Fleischer fleshed them out, producer Robert Fellows added on to the yacht set, Hughes came up with more ideas, Fleischer did his thing, Fellows added on to the yacht, more ideas, more yacht, more funny business with Vincent Price, more shooting, more ideas….
By the time they finished (they thought) the make-believe yacht filled the biggest soundstage at RKO, Vincent Price held a mock birthday party to celebrate his first year on the picture, Bob Mitchum went on a set-smashing rampage, Lee Van Cleef was judged unsuitable as the main heavy (Remember, the film was finished when this was decided.) an exhaustive search turned up Robert J Wilke as a replacement but after a few days work, Raymond Burr was hired on a whim from Hughes to re-shoot all the original footage done by Wilke and Van Cleef.
But at length Fleischer and Fellows screened the new ending, with the extensive and expensive yacht scenes, for their Boss – who wanted it all redone because the boarding ladder was on the wrong side!
Now I never take any memoir as gospel — the form just allows too many temptations to promote oneself and settle old scores — but JUST TELL ME WHEN TO CRY can be read for sheer outrageous entertainment. Fleischer’s accounts of working with Walt Disney, Kirk Douglas, Rex Harrison and Howard Hughes (to name just a few) are laugh-out-loud funny, and he pauses now and then for pithy observations like:
“Hope deceives more people than cunning ever could.â€
“Directing is a democratic process in which everyone does just as I tell them to do.â€
And
“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled.â€
That last one seems particularly apt these days. And it’s just a sample from a book (and movie) I highly recommend.
January 6th, 2021 at 1:24 pm
Van Cleef and Wilke were fine heavies from a decade of fine heavies (Borgnine, Elam, Jack Lambert, Ted de Corsia, Leo Gordon . . .) but better cast as henchmen than masterminds. Does Fleischer’s book recount his painful experience with Charles Bronson on MR. MAJESTYK?
January 6th, 2021 at 2:05 pm
“Raymond Burr… means to kill Mitchum and enter the country under his name.”
A missed opportunity!
Burr (or Van Cleef (or Wilke)) trying to pass themselves off as the person shown on a passport with Mitchum’s photo on it would be wonderfully funny.
January 6th, 2021 at 5:48 pm
Fred, you’re quite right about Van Cleef and Wilkie,and Fleischer does indeed mention Charles Bronson, whom he ironically dubs, “Mister Charm.”
January 6th, 2021 at 7:26 pm
The amazing thing is how well this worked considering the sharp turns in tone. Tim Holt has a decent bit for the little he is in the film and of course Mitchum and Russell were practically a film team.
But tone problems, script improbabilities, you name it, Price is wonderful and for all the problems and long shoot he is clearly having a ball on screen and frankly whenever he is on screen I had a ball too.
For me the comedy and brutality work together. Mitchum is in real danger and it feels that way and Price, who should be annoying comedy relief in any other film, is so smart and playful that you cheer for his inept but effective rescue to actually turn the tide.
For all the problems this is one of my favorite films, a delightful mess of a film that plays like one of the better screwball masterpieces of the hard-boiled genre that often mixed slapstick, sadism, pratfalls, sex, and eccentricity the same way.
January 6th, 2021 at 7:33 pm
It’s one of my favorite films, too, and with all its flaws, I was trying to think of a way to explain why that is. Thank you, David. You just did.
January 6th, 2021 at 8:17 pm
A WWII buff informed me that even by the 1940s “identity papers” still varied widely from country to country even including passports. Photo passports became a thing after WWI –at least for plebeians–and with the new surge in steamship travel. But apparently it took a while for a common document infrastructure to take hold the world over, and in many places was still non-standardized by the 40s. Passport photos, took a particularly long time to make uniform. It’s a debatable point I suppose, as to just how much you could get away with if you had a reason to.
Author B. Traven (one of the most exciting writers to emerge from the mid-century) devoted quite some vitriolic attention to the growth of international bureaucracy in his novel “Death Ship”. Highly recommended. Electric prose and the finest sea-writing I’ve ever enjoyed (matching or beating Melville, Verne, Conrad, and Thompson).
January 6th, 2021 at 8:45 pm
p.s.
The above book recommendation, looks great and I will certainly pass it on to acquaintances; for myself (while I admire Fleischer) I tend to shy away from all Hollywood anecdotes lest they sour me on the stars involved. I’m loathe to have my attention distracted when watching a performance.
I’ve seen and enjoyed “His Kind of Woman” and agree that Price manhandles the beast across the goal line carrying it on his shoulders.
January 7th, 2021 at 12:55 am
A further rambling musing (I hope no one minds):
The only thing overlooked in “His Kind of Woman” (a flick which contains everything else one might possibly want from a movie of its type) is? Well? …an invigorating romance which matches the title of the film.
(Although Fleischer apparently pans Bronson in his tell-all) if anyone was ever known for speed-of-molasses romancing it was Bob Mitchum. At least Bronson could get excited about something; at least he had a nervous system. Mitchum is always ‘slow to ignite’. He was cooler than cool can possibly be. Did any female ever rile him?
The muddle is compounded by pairing him with Jane Russell. This star –as fabulous as she was in so many ways –had that quintessentially sultry, almost deadpan delivery of her lines.
(To me) she seemed as if her mind was always on anything but the man opposite her. She always seemed almost bored; seemingly looking forward to suppertime at the end of the shoot.
It’s just my personal reactions I’m describing here and I beg pardon for ruminating so sloppily. But if I may so so, this fine, fun movie –this even extraordinary movie –is elevated by two of the most unusual industry players ever. Price and Burr.
Ray Burr is one of the most oddball actors ever. On might say the same about Vincent Price but somehow Price winds up in the good. Burr is just weird.
In radio: I must admit he is very fine in “Pat Novak” and “Fort Laramie”.
January 7th, 2021 at 12:58 am
p.s. I’ve never read a finer review of this much-storied flick than the one which started off this chat. A lot of people still talk about this movie but the review here really sums it up.
January 7th, 2021 at 3:33 am
I assumed the US would check ID more carefully, Lazy Georgenby, but the length of unguarded border even then made the film’s basic premise dafter.
I remember reading an account of an Englishman travelling in Europe before WWI who was outraged when he was asked for a passport – which he’d never bothered to get before – on entering Russia.
Jane Russell worked best paired with a contrasting woman – Marilyn Monroe in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” or Gloria Grahame (with Mitchum again!) in “Macao” are good examples.