Dangerous Crossing

This taut atmospheric mystery-at-sea gets great performances by Jeanne Crain, Michael Rennie, Max Showalter, and Carl Betz. The pacing is fast, and the characterizations are well-crafted. I have seen this movie six times, and I never tire of it. Everything is handled so professionally. I highly recommend it.

"Dangerous Crossing" is based on a story (actually a radio play) by John Dickson Carr, the master of the locked room mystery. But there's no locked room and the mystery is more in the vein of Cornell Woolrich, arguably the "father" of film noir. As in some of Woolrich's best tales, the story begins with a sudden twist of fate. Moments after Jeanne Crain as a new bride boards a luxury liner on her honeymoon, the groom vanishes. No one has seen him. Their stateroom is listed as unoccupied. Even Michael Rennie as the sympathetic ship's doctor (who's clearly smitten by her) suspects that her missing husband is a figment of her imagination. Still, there are some very odd people skulking the boat's fog-shrouded decks -- and when the answer comes, it's ingenious. Thankfully, the movie was made in the early 1950s so there was no problem bringing it in at a swift 75 minutes. Today, it would be padded out to the requisite two hours and the suspense would escape like air from a punctured tire. Credit Joseph Newman with smart direction (including an opening dockside scene worthy of Michael Curtiz,) making maximum use of the sets Fox built to serve as the Titanic. In short, a thoroughly entertaining grade B thriller.

Wow! What a great little noir. Apparently made utilising sets from 'Titanic' and 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes', films made the same year, this is a great example of fast (three weeks shooting) low budget film making. Not a wasted frame, this spooky, thrilling mystery, looks good all the time and many shots are exceptional. Lots of shadowy, foggy or against the light close-ups and a sensational sequence in the ballroom. All menace and subterfuge as we begin to feel that Jeanne Crain's character is surely going to break down despite the restrained and reassuring Michael Rennie, who doesn't even get a kiss. The film races along and has your attention all the time. Set on an ocean liner we do not get the dark streets and lamplight shadows but Newman certainly makes the most of what he's got; the drone of the foghorn, the swirling fog itself and a slew of fellow travellers Crain is not too sure about. And nor are we! Splendid.

Before I even saw the first scene of this very good mystery I was pretty sure that I would like it because it was adapted from a story by John Dickson Carr. In my opinion, he was the dean of mystery writers, specializing in the genre that gives us the stylish murder in the sealed room and similar types of "impossible" crimes.

This time, Ms. Crane is a woman who has been married for only a few hours. Her and her new husband are taking an ocean voyage for their honeymoon. But, the husband goes to see the purser, telling his wife that he will meet her in the ships' dining room. Since this is a Carr story the husband, naturally, disappears and most of the rest of the movie finds Ms. Crane trying to convince the ships' crew that her husband did indeed board the ship with her and has vanished. Of course, everyone claims to have not seen her husband board with her and she is thought of as a mental case. But, as the movie unfolds, the ships' doctor, played by Michael Rennie, begins to think that there may be truth to her story. From the start, it's obvious that at least one crew member is part of a nefarious plot and that Ms. Crane is in grave danger. But, which crew member, or members, are part of the plot? The movie is well paced and comes to a satisfying conclusion.

All in all, I found it to be most enjoyable.

"Husbands can get lost so easily," someone tells Jeanne Crain's character in the 1953 Fox thriller "Dangerous Crossing," and boy, do those words ever prove prophetic! Here, Crain plays Ruth Stanton, a wealthy heiress who departs on a honeymoon cruise after a whirlwind courtship. When her husband (Carl Betz, who most baby boomers will recognize as Dr. Alex Stone from the old "Donna Reed Show") disappears from the ship before they even leave the NYC harbor, Ruth becomes distraught...especially since no one on board, including the ship's doctor (sympathetically played by Michael Rennie), will believe the story that her husband ever existed! What follows is a tale of escalating suspense and paranoia, with no one on the ship seemingly worthy of Ruth's--or our--complete trust. While not precisely a film noir, "Dangerous Crossing" certainly does have its noirish aspects, and the scene in which Ruth searches the boat for her husband at night, in a dense mist, the only background sound being the intermittent blare of the ship's foghorn, is one that all fans of the genre should just love. Jeanne, very much the star of this film and appearing in virtually every scene, looks absolutely gorgeous, of course (the woman had one of the most beautiful faces in screen history, sez me), and her thesping here is top notch. She is given any number of stunning close-ups by veteran cinematographer Joseph Lashelle, who years before had lensed that classiest of film noirs, 1944's "Laura." In one of the DVD's surprisingly copious collection of extras, it is revealed that the picture took only 19 days to produce, at a cost of only $500,000; a remarkably efficient production, resulting in a 75-minute film with no excess flab and a sure-handed way of delivering shudders and suspense. Very much recommended.