Macao

 

 

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RKO Radio Pictures presents "MACAO" (1952) (81 min/B&W) (Fully Restored/Dolby Digitally Remastered) -- A sultry night club singer, a man who has also traveled to many exotic ports and a salesman meet aboard ship on the 45-mile trip from Hong Kong to Macao --- The singer is quickly hired by an American expatriate who runs the biggest casino in Macao and has a thriving business in converting hot jewels into cash --- Her new boss thinks one of her traveling companions is a cop.

The opening of the scenes draws the audience immediately into the action and into a romance between Mitchum and Russell --- The pace is pretty tight in the 81 minute film and besides a tidy plot we are treated to some snappy dialogue including a great closing line (how'd that get by the 1952 censors?) and 3 songs by Miss Russell.

Under the production staff of:
Josef von Sternberg [Director]
Bernard C. Schoenfeld [Screenplay]
Stanley Rubin [Screenplay] (screenplay)
Robert Creighton Williams [Story]
Samuel Bischoff [Executive Producer]
Alex Gottlieb [Producer]
Anthony Collins [Original Music]
Harry J. Wild [Director of Photography]
Samuel E. Beetley [Film Editor]
Robert Golden [Film Editor]

BIOS:
1. Josef von Sternberg [Director]
Date of Birth: 29 May 1894 - Vienna, Austria-Hungary (now Austria)
Date of Death: 22 December 1969 - Hollywood, California

2. Robert Mitchum
Date of Birth: 6 August 1917 - Bridgeport, Connecticut
Date of Death: 1 July 1997 - Santa Barbara, California

3. Janes Russell (aka: Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell)
Date of birth: 21 June 1921 - Bemidji, Minnesota
Date of Death: Still Living

4. William Bendix
Date of birth: 14 January 1906 - New York, New York, USA
Date of death: 14 December 1964 - Los Angeles, California

the cast includes:
Robert Mitchum - Nick Cochran
Jane Russell - Julie Benson
William Bendix - Lawrence C. Trumble
Thomas Gomez - Lt. Sebastian
Gloria Grahame - Margie
Brad Dexter - Vincent Halloran
Edward Ashley - Martin Stewart
Philip Ahn - Itzumi
Vladimir Sokoloff - Kwan Sum Tang

Mr. Jim's Ratings:
Quality of Picture & Sound: 4 Stars
Performance: 4 Stars
Story & Screenplay: 4 Stars
Overall: 4 Stars [Original Music, Cinematography & Film Editing]

Total Time: 81 min on DVD ~ RKO Radio Pictures ~ (01/23/2007)

This begins with a chase scene: a man in a white suit and white hat running, being chased by some thugs and a sinister Chinese guy with a knife. The man stops and looks back, forgetting Satchel Paige's dictum: "Don't look back, something might be gaining on you." They are in fact only dozen yards or so behind. But he starts running again and miraculously they are now further behind! (Typical chase scene camera work resulting in illogic. But never mind.) He ducks around a corner and hides. One of the thugs pauses, turns and sees him, which gives the man in the white suit a chance to knock him off his feet with a swift uppercut. Then he runs off in the direction he had turned. I was thinking how much he would be ahead of everybody by now if he had just kept running.

Chase scene ends with a knife thrown at him landing in the middle of his back. He's a cop from New York. Dead. Somehow this scene reminded me of something from Bud Abbott and Lou Costello.

Next scene is much better. Jane Russell as Julie Benson is in a cabin room on a passenger ship with a touristy kind of guy who's dancing, if you can call it that. He wants more than dancing. Julie pushes him away. He won't take no for an answer. She takes off a high heel and throws it at him. He ducks and the high heel flies out the window and hits Robert Mitchum who's playing an adventurer named Nick Cochran who just happened to be walking by. Boy meets girl, cute.

After a fashion he rescues the lady in distress. She's a hard talking, sultry babe with attitude. He wants to continue the party after knocking the masher out, but Julie isn't interested. So he takes her and kisses her. Very manly. She still isn't interested and tells him to beat it.

He does, but some time later he notices that his wallet is missing. We see her take out the dough and toss the wallet overboard. A few minutes later she meets up with William Bendix playing a global traveling salesman named Lawrence C. Trumble. Of course we know this is an elaborate disguise and he is somebody other than who he pretends to be. The "C" stands for Cicero, he later tells Nick, "but don't tell anybody." Trumble makes with the pleasantries, but Julie brushes him off. He tells her what he's selling. One thing she likes is nylons. He gives her a free pair, "no strings attached." She takes off her old nylons right there on the deck, tossing them overboard, one by one. Nick manages to be passing on the deck beneath and catches one of them as she puts on the new nylons. Later she asks, "Did you get a nice view?"

It's Macao, 36 miles from Hong Kong. It's hot. People are smoking and smuggling and gambling, and ex-pats who are stranded tend to make friends quickly. Naturally there's romance with Julie falling for Nick and vice versa, but some misunderstandings come between them. One has to do with Margie, played by the always intriguing Gloria Grahame, who, unlike Jane Russell, actually has an Oscar statue for her work in The Bad and the Beautiful from 1952, which, alas, I haven't seen. Seems that Margie would like to get her mitts on Nick and so manages at the urging of her boss, who owns a gambling nightclub, to make it seem like Nick bedded her down, or vice-versa, as you like.

This reminded me a bit of Casablanca (1942) and To Have and Have Not (1944) in that we have an American in an exotic locale with a dame in a joint amid some nefarious goings-on. As in To Have and Have Not, Jane Russell, like Lauren Becall, does some singing. One of the numbers is "Make It One for My Baby and One More for the Road," which she does very well. Russell hails from a time when movies featured full-figured babes, and she was one of the best. Sexy, shapely and not a bad actress, Russell melted a few hearts in her time.

In a way "Macao" is almost a parody of Far Eastern intrigue films, which might account for the slight Abbott and Costello feel. I think this may come from the fact that Josef von Sternberg began as director, but Howard Hughes fired him and had Nicholas Ray finish up. Anyway, this moves right along and there is some nice chemistry between the two stars. Personally I got a kick out of seeing them both again after all these years.

Bottom line: a kind of film noir done with atmosphere and a lot of snappy one-liners. Definitely worth seeing.

MACAO is a fairly entertaining story of crime and adventure in the Portuguese colony near Hong Kong after World War II. Jane Russell is a singer working for a local gambling boss (Brad Dexter). Robert Mitchum is an American who is on the run and William Bendix is pretending to be a salesman but he really has another more mysterious identity. The best thing about MACAO is the pairing of Russell and Mitchum who seem to be made for each other.

Josef von Sternberg also directed THE BLUE ANGEL.

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4.0 out of 5 stars A MITCHUM AND RUSSELL BLOCKBUSTER!
This film is a potpourri of oriental and expatriate American film noir. It's two major stars (Jane Russell and Robert Mitchum) fit like gloves into their roles. Read more

Published on Dec 8 2002 by Elaine Campbell

5.0 out of 5 stars A Delightfully Cool Trip to Macao
This is one of Mitchum's coolest films. It is not a dark noir film like "Out of the Past" but has an atmosphere all it's own. Read more

Published on July 24 2002

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the coolest
I admit I am a huge Robert Mitchum fan and have very little to say bad about him but being as objective as possible this is one of the coolest movies ever made. Read more

Published on April 28 2001 by mirrortime

2.0 out of 5 stars Mitchum & Russell in flawed but fun film
Being that Robert Mitchum is my favorite actor it is difficult for me to say anything negative about the films he appears in. This isn't a bad film, just a little murky. Read more

Published on Jun 7 1999 by Eric Evans(EricRover5@aol.com)

5.0 out of 5 stars A great movie for Mitchum fans
"Macao" is a fantastic picture for any fan of Robert Mitchum. Mitchum steals the show as an ex-G.I. Read more

Published on Jan 25 1999

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