His Kind of Woman (1951)

Directed by John Farrow; produced by Robert Sparks

Dan Milner (Robert Mitchum) is a quiet, low-level professional gambler who is trying to stay out of trouble. He is offered by strangers a deal for what appears to be some easy money: he simply has to fly to a resort in Mexico and stay there for a few days. He may be uncomfortable with the vagueness of the arrangement, but he needs the money. On the way there, he meets Lenore Brent (Jane Russell), who says she’s a wayward daughter of a millionaire, going to meet her boyfriend, married movie star Mark Cardigan (Vincent Price). Needless to say, Milner finds his arrangement more than stated, involving a fugitive gangster (Raymond Burr), a sadistic plastic surgeon (John Mylong), a U.S. government agent (Tim Holt) and plenty of danger.

This is a strange movie, and a good example of what happens when a studio boss fancies himself a movie-maker. When that boss is Howard Hughes, who owned RKO Pictures at the time, employees, even high-powered directors, usually follow orders.

His Kind of Woman is not a bad movie, but one that seems to be three movies put together by someone who thought crossing genres was a key to success. The Mitchum/Russell plot-line is an adventure/romance story. Burr’s character is brutally menacing and straight out of the darkest film noir. Price is added for light comedy. None of these elements really go together, and credit has to go to Mitchum, in particular, as the actor manages to keep a straight face and a professional demeanour while travelling between dimensions.

The acting is good; there is no fault in that. In each of their compartments, the players do very well. Mitchum and Russell have good screen chemistry together, but not the sexual sizzle that Hughes and others over the years appear to have seen. Burr is at his goggle-eyed best as the thoroughly ruthless gangster. But it is, surprisingly, Price whom, I feel, upstages them all.

His performance has been called campy, but I find that it is his character’s acting - not his own - that is campy. We see a snippet of Cardigan’s latest movie, and clearly Price is acting the part up, in the movie within a movie. And in turn, while Cardigan may be thought over the top, that is but a public persona. There is a scene in which we see him and other guests at the resort viewing his new film, and Cardigan looks about, a big smile on his face, to gauge how others are reacting. But it is not egotism, it is delight. Cardigan clearly enjoys what he does and wants others to enjoy it, too: child-like joy versus adult arrogance. We understand what he is really made of when he wonders if he has the courage for real fighting, as opposed to Hollywood playing.

The story is bland for the most part. It takes place at an exclusive but isolated resort, and much of the time is spent waiting for things to happen. We know something will, or expect it to, but it takes forever to occur. That’s not to claim that it is boring; it’s not. The dialogue is good, the actors are interesting, but the film is three quarters over before the writers or producer realise that something should be happening. Then there are shoot-outs, fist-fights, sadistic torture and more waiting. The comedy thrown in with the arrival of a squad of Mexican police is, unlike Price’s, out of place. And the reason for Mitchum’s adventure - Burr’s need for a new face, literally - makes the viewer wonder why Mitchum was chosen, and not some random stranger.

The direction does what it can with the script. It isn’t helped by the fact that the credited directed was replaced on Hughes’s orders, and most of the film was re-shot. Farrow was a very good director who was behind The Big Clock, Hondo and the remarkable and, perhaps unexpectedly involving, The Hitler Gang. His uncredited replacement, Richard Fleischer, was no amateur, responsible for The Narrow Margin and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. But here the story drags out the characters’ stay at the resort like an reasonably enjoyable but sleepy afternoon in the sun, and the climax is too complicated for its own good.

His Kind of Woman’s convoluted production history, wandering script and, most of all, its disparate parts, make for a movie that will have most viewers shaking their heads, not in derision, but in a kind of astonishment.