L'affaire de Trinidad

Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford re-team for "Affair in Trinidad," a 1952 film also starring Alexander Scourby, Juanita Moore and Valerie Bettis. Hayworth plays Chris Emery, a nightclub performer whose husband Neil dies by apparent suicide that turns out to be murder. His brother Steve (Ford) shows up on the day of the inquest, having received a letter from Neil on the day he died. He assumes the worst about his widowed sister-in-law and her relationship with a wealthy man, Max Fabian (Scourby).

Either I dosed off or the actual mystery was never fully explained. It was explained sort of, but I was never clear what Rita, her husband, or the people in Max's house had to do with it. The story, as the subject line indicates, is a gemisch of "Gilda" and "Notorious" and not as good as either one. Interestingly, the plot predates the Cuban missile crisis by 10 years. Totally amazing. For that alone, it's worth seeing.

Except for Ava Gardner, probably no actress defined the word "hot" like Rita Hayworth. For a woman who was painfully shy and didn't even want to be in show business, she sure could turn it on. And turn it on she does in two musical numbers, "I've Been Kissed Before" and "Trinidad Lady." She wears some gorgeous gowns, too. Glenn Ford and Rita make a wonderful team, certainly one of Hollywood's sexiest film love matches. Juanita Moore is excellent as the all-knowing maid, Dominique, and Alexander Scourby is an elegant villain.

"Affair in Trinidad" is well directed by Vincent Sherman with a nice, dark atmosphere, and one really believes it's Trinidad. Watching Rita Hayworth is never a waste of time; this isn't the greatest movie ever made, but Rita creates a few sparks.

On the orders of Columbia studio head Harry Cohn, Rita Hayworth was transformed from a latin B player to an A picture love goddess, her high spirits passing as all-American in titles like Cover Girl and Gilda. However the curse of the beautiful is that they become possessions by collectors, just as Rita told screenwriter of Gilda, Virginia Van Upp - "Men fell in love with Gilda but woke up with me". Her greatest collector was Prince Aly Khan, and the idea of capturing a movie star predated Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier in the 1950's. However the Hayworth/Khan marriage failed and Rita returned to Hollywood. Perhaps in a depression, unhappy with the vehicle provided for her comeback role, or simply older, Hayworth's sparkle had dimmed.

That's not to say that she doesn't look beautiful in the film. Whilst not lit as gorgeously as she was by Rudolph Mate in Gilda, she has a moment here standing in repose in shadow, smoking. But even with her character being a recent widow, her voice is dead and she carries herself like a somnambulist. She is best when she is dancing as she does twice here. In the first, Trinidad Lady, is the Carmen Rita - barefoot and tossing her dress. The framing distances us - director Vincent Sherman may be more interested in the crowd around the stage, but she looks happy performing. The second, I've Been Kissed Before, has obvious parallels to her Put The Blame on Mame from Gilda. She wears a shimmery black dress as fetishistic as the famous black satin sheath, the number is schematically arranged to present her as a tramp to later be rewarded with a face slap, even the choreography recalls that of Mame. However her announced intention to dance, even if contextualised, is a dramatic change of characterisation. She gives us the Gilda we want, and not the woman we have accepted up to this time - the one we have woken up with.

The Gilda connection is made in the film by the casting of Glenn Ford as her romantic partner, thankfully treating her a little kinder this time around, Steven Geray in an amusing supporting role as her employer, Alexander Scourby as a pseudo-George Macready but without the menace, the locale being Trinidad as Gilda was set in Buenos Aires and a plot about German-ish hoods investing in shady activities that pose a threat to security. Ford tells us he was a pilot in the war and since he isn't old enough to mean WW1, we know that Upp and her co-writers have written their screenplay in a rush, explaining Hayworth's own reluctance to participate.

Scourby is give the witty lines like "Some people are mellowed by drink. Have another" and "At the risk of dislocating your personality, try to be calm". He has a funny exchange with Ford about Hayworth - "I think you look lovelier in this color than any other. Don't you agree?" "There's a few shades I haven't seen her in yet". Valerie Bettis who created Rita's dances also appears as the wife of one of the Germans and her drunken energy is very welcome. She has a great laugh and even gets to parody Hayworth's dancing at one point, and Juanita Moore is good as Rita's maid. Sherman provides an exterior of an airport with seemingly limitless open skies, and gives Scourby's interior an imposing staircase.

This film is not a bomb, plot holes notwithstanding. Sherman moves things along and at least Hayworth isn't the embarrassment she was in the Hall of Mirrors sequence in The Lady from Shanghai. Perhaps Aly Khan took the best of her and Harry Cohn was left to salvage her career with the little she had left to give.

Affair in Trinidad is one of those pretend film noir movies that the public seem to love more than the critics, both back then on release and also now. I was personally hoping that as a big fan of Glenn Ford, and being an admirer of Rita Hayworth, I too would be thumbing my nose at the critics. Sadly not.

Directed by Vincent Sherman and with a screenplay by Berne Gilder and James Gunn, the story is set in Trinidad and pitches Hayworth as a recently widowed nightclub dancer and Ford as the deceased man's brother. The death is suspicious and as the law closes in (in the form of Torrin Thatcher) secrets will out and a bigger picture kind of emerges.

Ok! Lets not compare to Gilda and Notorious, for obvious reasons, and just accept Affair in Trinidad as its own entity. What transpires is a tired tropical exercise in romance and spy like intrigue. In fact it's a bit of a hack job coasting in on the two leading stars reputations, Ford as a genre presence and Hayworth as some sort of ogle feature. The plot is ridiculous where nothing much makes sense. Character's motivations are sketchy at best, and once the screenplay plays its hand for reveal purpose, you wonder just where are the villains from and what exactly are they up to?! Is that explained or did I have a power nap?...

It doesn't help that head weasel Max Fabian (Alexander Scourby) is so not threatening, and boring to boot, that it renders the intended dramatic oomph at pics finale as being akin to a damp squib. Hayworth goes through the motions in the acting scenes, only holding court with her two dance numbers (voice dubbed by Jo Ann Greer), and while Ford can brood with the best of them, his character is so poorly written it doesn't let the actor shine.

As for this remotely being film noir? Not a chance, neither visually, thematically or in characterisations does it work on that film making style. Consider me bloody annoyed. 5/10

This highly entertaining movie was the return of Rita Hayworth to the screen after a brief flirtation with married life and screen retirement. For her comeback, to establish back with the graces of the movie buying public, she is teamed with Glenn Ford who starred with her in her biggest and most popular hit Gilda. This was no guarantee for box office magic because an even bigger budgeted movie "Carmen" starring the aforementioned tanked in 1948. But that was a unoperatic take on the famous opera story Carmen with a woefully miscast Glenn Ford in a Tyrone Power like role. Avoid that movie. But going back here to the mystery and intrigue of Gilda, this movie was a box office hit unlike the earlier comment mistakenly claimed and was one of the 23 biggest hits of its year. ( I don't know the exact rank). And Glenn Ford was wooed away from Columbia by MGM with a bigger paycheck and Hayworth stayed on at Columbia through the late fifties. The plot a mismash of Notorious and the earlier Gilda as Hayworth plays the temptress who is really an innocent who all men cannot resist. Her husband is murdered and his brother shows up to find things more fishy than they really are. One thing about Hayworth, she could hoof for sure and sell sex through dance and the two musical numbers are a delight. Forlorn shadows, dark passages, whispers in the dark follow as Vincent Sherman, a true craftsman, if not an auteur (I do not believe an auteur is superior to a craftsman. An auteur just has a regular theme in the movies he/she directs.) brings sharp direction and well-earned suspense to this fine movie. Catch it whenever it airs or better, just rent it.

In 1946, Columbia Pictures had a huge hit on its hands with "Gilda". Now, six years later, the studio has reunited its stars, Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth, for a similar sort of film. However, despite the similarities of the plot, this one just doesn't measure up and is a mostly tepid film that could have used a much better script.

The film begins with the death of Rita's husband. Oddly, she never seemed all too broken up because of this and when the police ask her to 'dig around', she agrees to hang out with an unsavory friend who probably was responsible for the man's death (which was incorrectly ruled a suicide). Now think about it...the police asking her to walk into a dangerous place AND involve herself in an illegal search! However, the dead husband's brother (Ford) blunders in and mostly spends his time overacting--either screaming at Rita and blaming her for the death OR begging her pardon and apologizing for the outburst--followed by making out with her! Frankly, none of this made a lot of sense. And so, by the time the film was over, I was annoyed--annoyed because the romance made no sense at all (what was the motivation AND didn't Rita's husband just die!?). In addition, the whole thing came off as a bit talky and dull. A disappointment, that's for sure.