Singapour

SINGAPORE (1947) Fred MacMurray, Ava Gardner. ** Bland mix of film noir, and imitation CASABLANCA. Imagine all the CASABLANCA characters portrayed by competent but unmemorable actors. Place them, again, in an exotic setting, in a story about passionate lovers separated by war and later reunited. Once more, the love of the hero's life is married to another man, but this time the plot includes amnesia and pearl smuggling. Gardner is radiant and sexy, but her acting inexperience shows. MacMurray is wooden. First rate cinematography, however.

On her way up the Hollywood ladder MGM loaned Ava Gardner out for this potboiler adventure film Singapore. As the area suggests romance and mystery just the title alone would bring in a few customers at the box office. In fact Singapore still is an area of intrigue though now enjoying a prosperity that could not have been imagined when this film was made.

Fred MacMurray and Ava Gardner are a pair of star crossed lovers who marry just before the Japanese invade and occupy the city. MacMurray has a fortune in pearls that he stashes and while trying to retrieve them the bombs are dropped and he thinks Gardner is killed. He barely gets away in his schooner with other refugees without pearls and without Ava who he married just before the attack.

After the war Fred's back to get his pearls, but he sees Ava now married to Roland Culver and with a bad case of amnesia. And he's got other problems as villains Thomas Gomez and George Lloyd want them as well.

Singapore was created on the Universal back lot and didn't have the advantage that its remake Istanbul had with color and location shooting. But they did make a better film though not all that much better. It's been compared to Casablanca by many to the detriment of Singapore. But those letters of transit that will allow two people, which two to escape and join the fight against Nazism are a much bigger prize than Fred's pearls. You care a lot more about Bogey, Bergman, and Henreid than the triangle here. And this film didn't have As Time Goes By either.

MacMurray and Gardner also don't have the chemistry that Bogey and Bergman do. But that's not fair, who else ever did?

Singapore is your routine potboiler another film MacMurray was grabbing for the paycheck after he left Paramount. As for Ava after The Killers and The Hucksters it was not a step down, but just keeping her on the same career plateau as before.

Ava Gardner is such a pleasure to look at, even a B movie in which she plays makes my time worthwhile .Actually,Fred McMurray has got pearls and a gem .The screenplay is far-fetched -with an improbable outcome- and includes smuggling,war (no battles or camp of prisoners though),and even amnesia -but the viewer is not taken in by it a single minute ;there is of course the usual flashback ,which can be found in almost all the films noirs of the era.Compared to "the killers" ,Gardner's precedent movie ,it's obvious Brahm is no match for Siodmak.A couple of tourists -the kind of people we often see in the hotels- provides the comic relief.If you do not ask too much ,it's pretty entertaining and well acted.

Director John Brahm manages to hold this poor-man's "Casablanca" together. The picture moves at a good clip and Brahm makes the studio-set Singapore visually interesting. There's help too from stars Fred MacMurray and Ava Gardner as lovers whose lives are complicated by World War II and Gardner's amnesia when MacMurray, who thought her dead, finds her again in postwar Singapore, married to a wealthy planter. MacMurray and Gardner are really a goofy romantic team, but MacMurray has his appealing casual charm, and Gardner's vague, unfocused acting works well in some of her amnesiac scenes (plus she was at her most beautiful in the late 1940's). Supporting turns by pros like Richard Haydn and Spring Byington are also a plus. Overall, contrived and derivative, but it looks like a classic compared to the depressing Errol Flynn 1957 remake, "Istanbul."

This film begins with a man by the name of "Matt Gordon" (Fred MacMurray) returning to the city of Singapore not long after the end of World War 2. The main reason for his return is due to the fact that he had hidden a large cache of illegal pearls and he has come to take ownership of them again. Along with that, there was a young woman named "Linda Grahame" (Ava Gardner) who he had to leave behind when the Japanese attacked the city and--even though he believes she was killed during the war--he feels the need to find out. One way or the other. Be that as it may, no sooner does he arrive in Singapore then he is met by a high-ranking member of law enforcement named "Deputy Commissioner Hewitt" (Richard Haydn) who has a professional interest in recovering the illegal pearls. Likewise, a criminal figure by the name of "Mr. Maribus" (Thomas Gomez) who is equally interested in possessing these pearls as well. Yet as much as Matt wants these pearls, his priorities change when he meets Linda again. The problem is, she professes to have never met him. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was an interesting movie, more or less, with certain similarities to "Casablanca" being somewhat obvious. To that effect, although both Fred MacMurray and Ava Gardner put in decent performances, I didn't really see much chemistry between them. At least, nothing like Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman had in the previously mentioned film. Even so, I enjoyed this movie for the most part and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.