Last Night

I'm working my way through the Warners "Film Noir Classic Collection Vol 3" DVD set, and I took a look at "His Kind of Woman" last night. The film stars Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell and Vincent Price. I hadn't seen it before, knew from various reviews that it was a bit of a mess, due to the interference of Howard Hughes, the film's producer, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. First off, it has a great cast --- along with those previously mentioned, there are notable bits from Raymond Burr, Jim Backus, Charles McGraw, Marjorie Reynolds, and Tim Holt. Also, there are some other great character actors, whose names may escape me, but who leave indelible impressions --- the bar tender, in the dive where Mitchum first meets Russell, stands out especially. He has a great, sinister, noir face, and I've seen him before, but where?

It's true the film has a cobbled together quality, but it didn't seem that obvious to me until the last 30 minutes or so; it felt like it was wrapping up, felt just about perfect in it's balance of thrills and humor to that point, and then took it's sweet time getting to the end and lost alot of it's momentum. Still, it remained fun, largely due to Vincent Price, bizarrely cast as an Errol Flynn-type movie star. I look forward to the commentary track, wondering exactly what happened to this film and what the original cut may have looked like.

So far, I've watched 3 of the 5 films in this boxset; I'd rate "His Kind of Woman" and "On Dangerous Ground" as equally entertaining, though films with vastly different moods, while "The Racket" was rather mundane and forgettable, saved only by Robert Ryan's intense performance. Even with that said, his role in that film pales next to his riveting turn in "On Dangerous Ground".