Wed 26 Dec 2018
DEPORTED. Universal Pictures, 1950. Marta Toren, Jeff Chandler, Claude Dauphin, Marina Berti, Richard Rober. Director: Robert Siodmak.
Deported is far from a cinematic masterpiece, but with director Robert Siodmak at the helm, fans of crime films of the late forties and early fifties nay find several points of interest along the way. Filmed largely on location in Italy, the film’s travelogue aspects may not be of much interest today, but any film based on the life of Lucky Luciano has to have at least the headline factor going for it.
Jeff Chandler plays Luciano’s counterpart in this film, a small time American gangster by the name of Vittorio Mario Sparducci, or as he was known in the US, Vic Smith. Shipped out of the country and back to his home town in Italy, Smith’s primary goal is to find a way to get his hands on the $100,000 in stolen money he was unable to bring with him (and for which he has spent five years in prison).
To that end he romances the widowed Countess di Lorenzi (Marta Toren), whose primary preoccupation in life is raising money to help feed the people of her small, impoverished post-war town. Under the watchful eye of his parole officer (Claude Dauphin), Smith manages to keep his plans a secret, until…
I needn’t tell you the whole story, need I? The pace is slow, but not terminally so, and the ending is well worth waiting for, especially to dedicated connoisseurs of noir films. The biggest flaw, as far as I was concerned, was the casting. They’re all fine actors, but Toren was Swedish, not Italian, while Dauphin was French. And of course, Jeff Chandler was born in Brooklyn, which allows him to portray a tough American gangster to perfection, but Italian? No. He stands a foot and a half taller than his relatives back in Italy, with no family resemblance at all.
All in all, this rather pedestrian crime film is far from essential, but it’s solidly produced, with some good work done by both the cast and Oscar-winning cinematographer William Daniels. A bit more than average, but no more than that.
December 26th, 2018 at 4:38 pm
Slow going, Deported is indeed, but having seen it on its initial release and several additional times along the way found no problem with Dauphin, Marta Toren or Jeff Chandler. They were attractive, interesting and fun, Dauphin. As for Chandler’s size, he was brought up on franks and beans in the United States. On the other hand, and this was not in play in 1950, Toren and Chandler are tragic people, not only on screen but in reality. Does it show? It does when it is understand how glum, how perfectly humorless they are. Am I reading into it? Yes, of course, but their reality permeates the drama with sorrow and defeat. Does that makes sense? Hope so.
December 26th, 2018 at 4:59 pm
You’re absolutely right, Barry. Both Toren and Chandler are interesting and fun to watch in this movie, but there’s also not a lot of humor in their story lines. I knew I was missing something in my review, and that’s exactly what I really didn’t pick up on.
And, yes, the fates of the actors themselves can carry over the roles you see them in. No doubt about it.
December 26th, 2018 at 5:39 pm
Despite a bit of miscasting the three leads carry this one as much as any touches of noir from Siodmak. It’d the dark side of the Art Buchwald comedy of basically the same story with Yul Brynner, Mitzi Gaynor, and Noel Coward (SURPRISE PACKAGE) where gangster Brynner gets deported to his the small island he came from. I reviewed PACKAGE here sometime back.
Chandler always looked convincing as a Slav or German, even Native American, but despite the fact I can think of a half dozen Italian actors with that basic facial structure the Jewish Chandler looked too Aryan to play Italian convincingly.
Here the film is just good enough I didn’t care, but in a lesser film it might have been a bigger drawback. As for Toren, Hollywood saw her as exotic, and to Hollywood an Italian countess was exotic, so …
Dauphin, I don’t really care what he is in, I’ll watch him.
Barry,
Both Toren and Chandler were actors, that, whatever the role, seemed to have something haunting them, even if it was never articulated in the script. Maybe it did reflect their lives, but it was a quality that worked well for them in films. Chandler in particular always seemed to be carrying some secret pain or sorrow beyond whatever the plot required.