Schmuggler von Saigon

Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake co-starred for Paramount in three classic films, This Gun For Hire, The Glass Key, and The Blue Dahlia. Their fourth and final film was Saigon and it doesn't rate in the category of the other three.

Saigon has Ladd as a recently discharged Army Air Corps pilot who has not headed back to the USA, but hung around the Orient watching out for a buddy Douglas Dick who has had multiple surgeries due to head wounds. Dick has a platinum cranium courtesy of the war and the Army Medical Corps, but he's dying, he has maybe a month or two left.

Ladd and another of his crew Wally Cassell are hanging around to make Dick's life or what's left of it, happy. For that reason they accept a flying job to Saigon, no questions asked from Morris Carnovsky who is carrying a lot of cash from shady wartime dealings and Veronica Lake. They're getting $10,000.00 for the flight.

Lake and the cash get away all right, but Carnovsky is detained by the police who are firing at Ladd's plane as it is taking off. With them thinking Carnovsky is dead, the four are at liberty. Dick falls hard for the sexy Lake and Ladd wants to keep her around to make him happy in his last days. What a pal.

All these elements come together in a bloody climax that I will not reveal. The idea of a story about a dying soldier was handled far better the following year by Warner Brothers in The Hasty Heart.

This was also the second Alan Ladd film with a far east city title, the other being Calcutta from the year before. Although this film is better than Calcutta, it's still cut from the same routine action/adventure mold that Calcutta was taken from. And like Calcutta you would never know the problems that were happening in French IndoChina as the Viet Minh were starting their guerrilla war for independence against the French Colonial occupying power. Said power here is represented by Luther Adler who as always is giving a great performance.

Veronica Lake left Paramount the following year and Alan Ladd would follow a few years after that. Too bad their screen partnership ended on a mediocre note.

Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake end their four-year partnership on a low note, Saigon (1947). This film and another one, the name of which escapes me, demonstrates that Hollywood knew very little of the population of Saigon. There were a lot of Americans and not much in the way of Vietnamese.

Major Larry Briggs (Ladd) is told that one of his war buddies (Pete), has a brain tumor and only a few months to live. It sounds like that tumor Bette Davis had in "Dark Victory", glioma of the cerebellum. Larry decides not to tell him. He and his other buddy Mike want to give Pete the most fabulous time of his life.

Opportunity comes when Briggs is hired for $10,000 by Alex Maris (Morris Carnovsky) to fly a plane to Saigon. It must leave by 6 p.m. It doesn't. At 6:30, Maris' secretary Susan (Lake) arrives, and we hear the sound of gunshots. Susan insists that they wait for Maris. Briggs refuses. He takes off with his two buddies and Susan.

The right engine goes out and the plane lands in a swamp. Prevailing upon the natives, they finally make it via oxcart to Saigon. Eventually Larry learns that although Susan claimed $78 on the card she filled out at the hotel, she has an absolute fortune in a briefcase.

Meanwhile, Pete has fallen hard for Susan, and Briggs asks her to be nice to him - she is a rather cold person. However, knowing Pete's story, she goes along.

The problem with this film for me is that there really isn't a plot. You have to fill it in yourself. Maris is a nefarious businessman and is sending Susan to Saigon in order to pay for something. He obviously has been involved in some illegal wartime dealings.

The movie just sort of meanders along. I really like Ladd and Lake, both had great presences. The Cassell character drove me insane. The excellent stage actor Luther Adler plays the mens' boss, Lt. Keon.

A little trivia - I also watched "Calcutta" starring Alan Ladd. Just as in this film, in the beginning, the right engine of the plane goes out and, just like this film, they have to dump boxes, etc., whatever is in the plane. Same scene. And I guess it's always the right engine.

After World War II Larry learns that his flying buddy Mike will only live a short time despite the efforts of the doctors. He takes on a profitable flying job for profiteers Maris to finance a good time for his buddy. As the plane takes off he shoves Maris' secretary Susan on board. When Mike falls for her, Larry tells her to play along for Mike's sake. She, of course, falls for Larry. So does Larry.

Blending film noir, adventure and melodrama together, Saigon is not a bad viewing; it can be a bit slow, and Ladd and Lake spend most of the time exchanging vitriolic ripostes, however things pick up in the last thirty minutes. There's some sensitive portrayals by Ladd and Lake in regards to their dying friend.

SAIGON was the last teaming of ALAN LADD and VERONICA LAKE, and sorry to say, it's also their least satisfying effort.

It's the buddy theme again, with Ladd and WALLY CASSELL trying to protect their buddy, DOUGLAS DICK, from the truth that he doesn't have long to live--and then getting involved in an adventurous tale of smugglers, loot and murder. VERONICA LAKE turns up to join the trio for a cloak and dagger sort of tale that pits the three buddies against the villainous LUTHER ADLER.

Neither Ladd nor Lake is seen to best advantage here and the script, as well as their seeming indifference to the storyline, is the real problem. Paramount apparently made this one in a hurry to cash in on whatever remained of the star chemistry Ladd and Lake once had, but they got poor returns for their efforts and didn't invest enough time to create a good enough script.

For Ladd and Lake fans, it's strictly below average as entertainment.

A curious blend of film noir (the story takes place just at the end of WW2 ,like in Dmytryk's "crossfire") and of melodrama (the soldier whose days are numbered :his two mates -the threesome is some kind of 'three musketeers" cum "lives of a Bengal lancer" - want to help him make the best of it ,without telling him the truth).When secretary Veronica Lake appears ,the terminally ill puts her on a pedestal .His two mates just ask her to pretend but they despise this bad gal ,this femme Fatale .Ladd is particularly such a lout ,and with his favorite partner ,at that!This scene when he shows the girl another way of wearing her sumptuous dress might remind the young audience of Kim Basinger in "LA Confidential".

This is perhaps not Ladd's best ,nor among his best ,but his pairing with Lake was magic and considering they have some kind of Colombo's father as a cop hot on their heels,they are excusable.