henryforastero

Mr. Lucky is a unique film in Cary Grant's career. For a change, Cary plays a rough and unscrupulous professional gambler named Joe, who openly declares that he wants to ignore the draft order to serve in the World War against oppression and injustice. For him, the war he has fought and is fighting is personal. It has been a journey out of the misery of his birth and social class and making his way in the world of gambling with his intelligence and his rudeness. Luck has made him meet a rich heiress, Dorothy Bryant (Laraine Day), who does charity work at the head of a Relief Association for those affected by the war. After persistent persecution, he convinces her that the dividend would be much greater if, instead of asking for donations, the attendees of a party called to raise funds, entertained themselves in a gambling hall managed by Joe. Of course, ruthless Joe and his partner only want the money for themselves and plan to leave any noble purpose behind. But Cary and Laraine have fallen in love and for the first time in his life, the opportunistic gambler finds his resolve weakened. I won't tell the rest so as not to spoil the plot but I found the film to be a good watch. The plot is steeped in the atmosphere of 1943 when war had become widespread and its outcome was still uncertain. This tinged everything with drama, especially the love. Also in the cast are Gladys Cooper, Charles Bickford and Paul Stewart giving performances in keeping with their acting backgrounds in the medium.

Imagine, in the middle of the Cold War, a small town near Moscow in the former Soviet Union. It is a replica of a typical American town somewhere in the west of the country. Only English is spoken with an authentic American accent and life is routine, just like in its real counterpart.

There, Doug McClure, who will call himself Eddie Young, trained for five years under the supervision of the ruthless Richard Basehart (Bob Barnes) to infiltrate the United States and enter the board of directors of a company that works on secret weapons for the government. As part of his cover, he will lead a normal life, as he did in the toy Soviet village, with a wife who obviously must never penetrate his secret and discover his true objective. But when everything seems to be going well, as he is to be promoted to an important position on the board of directors, Darren McGavin (Joe Chalk) is tasked with verifying for the government that this new director is completely trustworthy and announces that he will leave no stone unturned from the day Eddie Young was born to the present.

Eddie's wife is played by the beautiful and efficient actress Rosemary Forsyth and in a special role Meg Foster (what eyes she has!) acts as Eddie's wife during his training in the Soviet replica.

Great performances, intrigue and mounting tensions make this TV movie one of the best spy thrillers I have seen. Forgive the oxymoron but it is a realistic fantasy about the possible work of a spy and it succeeds in escaping the fashion of James Bond style agent or operative movies.

I was trying to recall films in which the Swedish actress Märta Torén acted, undoubtedly talented but also a beautiful woman, with her dark hair and remarkably blue eyes. I don't know if she would have been another Ingrid Bergman, because the world was changing by leaps and bounds after the war and her life was cut short at such a young age. Just 30 years old! But this film, quite unknown, has an outstanding cast: Besides Torén there is Dana Andrews, a tough man but with a soft core, Stephen McNally, usually a villain here is an idealist fighting for the Zionist side and in a rather important role Fred Chandler, another actor who was going to have a good career until death also surprised him untimely at the age of 42.

It is a painful argument because I would like to recall it as a historical fact that is in the past, but when I was a child in the 1960s, the news headlines spoke of a serious war in the Middle East. In this film, which is set in 1947 but was made in the heat of the moment, dating from 1949, we are told of the newly reborn State of Israel and the British military control over this ancient people who were reoccupying their ancestral territory as a brand new nation, hated by their Muslim neighbors. Mike Dillon (Andrews) is taking a load of illegal immigrants to the new Jewish state on his ship.

These are suffering people, many of them survivors of the Nazi genocide. David Vogel (MacNally) has promised to pay him, cash on delivery, but forces Dillon to disembark with his passengers to make good on the payment. Among the rebels, who do not believe in British good intentions and want freedom without their interference, is Sabra (Torén), the radio voice of free Israel, who is listened to devoutly by patriots and foreigners alike. In charge of the military part of these rebels is Asvan Kurta (Chandler), a tough but completely honourable man, someone whose word can be trusted. Of course, the British occupation troops had good arguments to justify their intervention. They were trying to prevent the outbreak of an armed conflict dangerous for the world, between Israel and its most belligerent Islamic neighbours. They were asking for patience from people who had lost their homes and families due to the persecutions caused by the Nazi occupation.

It is very hard to see how things get out of control and armed confrontation between the British and the rebels occurs. To prevent the deportation of those unfortunate people who were seeking refuge! Seventy-five years after these events, innocent people continue to die in the Middle East, as I write these lines at the beginning of the year 2025. The actors are different, the situations different, but the ancestral discord persists. This film is very well written (Robert Buckner), directed (George Sherman) and has a great cast. But its subject matter is thorny and I suppose that is why it has been forgotten.