Where Danger Lives

Usually I laugh only while watching comedies but this "thriller" had me in stitches often! Laughing, that is, when I wasn't groaning in disbelief. Ignore the weighty "analysis" by the film noir experts--this movie, despite Robert Mitchum's best efforts to keep a straight face, is laughably bad. Without wasting a moment his character ditches his understanding and classy fiancee (played by director Farrow's wife, Maureen O'Sullivan) for a trashy suicide case. He soon gets hit pretty hard on the head and announces (he's a doctor, so he knows these things!) that he's got a concussion and he's going to be disoriented a lot and eventually end up paralyzed. So we're supposed to believe that he's led down this dark and dreary path by the "femme fatale" 'cause he's had a bad knock on the head--but he's already demonstrated a total lack of common sense and we've lost any identification we might've had as an audience with him. Incomprehensible, really.

The film starts with Mitchum telling stories to young patients, a likable and caring doctor. So why does he fall in love with this mad woman? 'Cause there wouldn't be a movie if he didn't. The film has nice black-and-white photography, good production values...hard to believe this much money was spent on such a lame-brain story.

In Mitchum's last RKO film, he plays a doctor who saves a young woman from a suicide attempt. The young woman, played by Faith Domergue, is very mysterious. She gives the hospital a fake name and address, then later sends Mitchum a telegram asking him to meet her. Mitchum does and he finds himself entranced by her beauty. Then, I'm guessing some time has passed, because all of a sudden he's meeting her at a club, greeting her with a romantic kiss. She asks him if he loves her, says she loves him. I'm thinking, "it's only been a couple days?" Regardless, like many old Hollywood films, they seem to fall in love rather quickly. Then Domergue drops a bombshell, she and her elderly father are leaving that night for the Bahamas. Then she bails.

Mitchum drowns his sorrow in half a dozen coconut cocktails and decides to go to Domergue's home to plead with her to stay. Because showing up at your girlfriend's home, drunk, expecting to meet her father, will go over well. Anyway, Mitchum shows up at the house, meets Domergue's father, Claude Rains. He quickly learns that all is not what it seems.

Claude Rains and Maureen O'Sullivan are third and fourth billed, respectively. Their combined screen time is maybe 10 minutes. I assume that O'Sullivan was there because her husband, John Farrow, was the director. This film didn't need someone of her caliber for the part of Julie the nurse. Any actress could have played that part. Like in many of these classic films featuring doctors and nurses, the nurse is in love with the doctor. It takes the doctor dating someone else for him to realize that he too, loves his nurse.

Mitchum was fantastic, per usual. Domergue was okay as the femme fatale. There wasn't really anything special about her performance. She definitely paled in comparison with Mitchum and Rains. I can't help but wonder what someone like Jean Simmons would have done in this role, but somehow I think that at this point in time, all casting decisions for actresses at RKO came down to Howard Hughes and who he wanted to date.

By the time 1950 rolled around, I guess the film noir genre was getting a bit mannered in its delivery. "Where Danger Lives" is a classic example of hack work, albeit with a touch of style, and with Mitchum in the lead, it is, of course, eminently watchable. Claude Rains is superb as well, but unlike Mitchum, he has the good sense to make his contribution a cameo role. (I guess he knows "where danger lives," eh?)

Even Mitchum can't save this turkey, however, although he appears to be trying his best. The contrived and rudimentary plot doesn't help; star-crossed lovers on the run, trying to escape a murder rap and get across the border. On the positive side of the ledger, along with Mitchum, this film attains a generally nightmarish atmosphere of pervasive doom which is occasionally effective; it reminded me of Jim Thompson's novel "The Getaway" which was eventually made into a movie with Steve McQueen. In essence, it is a morality play, with Mitchum the noble doctor having the hots for this crazy psychopath, betraying his "good woman"(Maureen O'Sullivan), and paying for his carnal transgression again and again; this is probably the movie's main ace in the hole.

This nifty part of the movie is hamstrung by absurd plot contrivances and lazy screen writing, unfortunately. Three examples: every time a radio is turned on, you can bet you are about to get another prime nugget of expository information, perfectly timed and delivered on a silver platter. The "Whiskers Week" plot device is even more comically ridiculous, and lastly, with the amount of cops looking for these two, you would suspect that they murdered an entire classroom of small children or something. (Don't get me started on the "mewing cat" or you might get your eyes scratched out.)

Thankfully, this uneven and sloppy movie clocks in at an efficient 82 minutes, so no serious harm done. If you're a Mitchum fan like me, you'll probably want to give it a look; just don't expect too much, and you'll probably find it mildly diverting.

This peculiar excursion is skillfully shot by Nick Musuraca in the dark black and white nature of the genre in its era, and is capably helmed by John Farrow, who fruitfully captures these delirious visions. It's by and large a character study of an accomplished man blinded by lust, whose life disintegrates as it falls behind him. Mitchum is the guiltless man who is entrapped, but doesn't understand he's innocent until quite late. Too late? Only the will to live in spite of being so far out of his comfort zone and his senses can save him from this interesting spin on the framed-for-murder predisposition of the formula.

Mitchum, as was his modus operandi, once again put on airs of sleepy-eyed detachment and barrel-chested reserve, but in this case, he is interesting and sympathetic, realistically showing how a smart guy and such an experienced doctor could be in such a weak position. He genuinely and believably connects to the emotional and sensory reality of his bewildered character, whose feelings and senses are constantly in flux. Likewise, director John Farrow effectively taps the outlandish, hallucinatory traits in this customary noir plot: Mitchum spends the last half of the film barreling down the dirt roads of southern California with a concussion, fainting cyclically and awakening enclosed by some of the murkiest landscape the U.S. has to present.

Yes, Mitchum is cast against type as a stable professional, but actually, I think Faith Domergue is equally if not more accountable for the lack of artifice in Mitchum's performance than he is. From moment to moment, and this is most definitely a movie that lives in the present, she genuinely affects him. They're not just saying lines at one another, overlapping their words and movements with some programmed, bottled manner. The sultry, manic, hard-bitten, shifty-eyed edge is real. What's more, Claude Rains as always is superb, in a small role but a pretty important one, where his every motion looks to be controlled over a maniacal wrath all set to gush out, best illustrated by his malicious grin while meeting his wife's lover. And the film's a pleasingly bizarre screwball streak further sets it apart as a unique entry in the film noir canon.

I'm a noir fan but I never even heard of this picture until I bought the DVD noir collection it came in. As a result I wasn't expecting much and so I wasn't disappointed. It is a pretty pedestrian film which borders on tedious too often, and is more of a psychological melodrama rather than a straightforward film noir.

I always liked Robert Mitchum but he's trapped in a thankless part here - It's very unlike him to be buffaloed by a pretty skirt and his persona never lent itself to roles as cerebral as a doctor. He was, of course, a man of action and seems out of his element in this picture. I don't agree with those reviewers who hammered Faith Domergue - I thought she played her part well and I can't think of anyone who could have milked it any better than she did. A little more of Claude Rains could have helped matters but he got killed off in his only scene early on.

No telling what this movie was when first released - a weak 'A' or a better-than-average 'B'- but, as is, it's a passable effort by a director who has some pretty good films to his credit. I liked "Alias Nick Beal" and "The Big Clock", speaking for myself. It's just that this one could have been so much better.

All in all, it's worth a look but is not an important film or a noteworthy entry in Mitchums' career.