His Kind of Woman

This brilliant and mind-boggling film noir might be more properly called an anti-noir, doing for the crime movie what 'The Missouri Breaks' would do for the Western. It's not every noir hero who both offers marriage guidance AND does his own ironing.

'His Kind of Woman' is, in fact, three movies. It starts off as a fairly straight film noir, although its poker-faced pastiche of 'Out of the Past' is a little TOO poker-faced. Then, when the hero goes to Mexico to meet the other characters, the plot stops dead and enters narrative limbo, in a kind of noir precursor to Bunuel's 'The Exterminating Angel': Six Noir Characters In Search Of A Plot.

Then lunacy truly takes hold, as the plot eventually arrives, and Vincent Price, playing a barmy ham actor, takes over from Mitchum (magnificent as ever, baffled and goaded by a plot even less alert than he!) as the presiding spirit, and turns a moody thriller into the giddiest farce, where all the unpleasant aspects of film noir (fatalism, misogyny) are happily overturned. Proof that genre-busting didn't begin with Melville or Godard.

HIS KIND OF WOMAN, the first of two pairings of RKO's resident 'tough guy', Robert Mitchum, and it's major sex symbol, Jane Russell (the near-classic MACAO would follow, a year later), is such a wonderful, convoluted 'film noir' spoof that it is amazing that it has never appeared on video. Broadly funny, and a more than a bit surreal, the tale of down-and-out gambler Mitchum 'hired' to travel to a remote Mexican resort to provide a 'body' so that a notorious gangster (Raymond Burr, sleekly villainous) can feign his death and return to the U.S., is action-packed, and has been described as "Bogie and Bacall on Steroids'!

A great deal of the success of the John Farrow-directed film is due to the inspired casting of Vincent Price as a ham actor who gets to 'live out' his celluloid life, aiding Mitchum. Price quotes Shakespeare, critiques his performance, and is amazed by his own heroics, and he has never been funnier, on screen.

An excellent supporting cast, including Tim Holt, Charles McGraw, Marjorie Reynolds, Paul Frees (the famous Hollywood 'voice' actor, actually seen, for a change), and Jim Backus contribute to the on screen mayhem, and Russell sings "Five Little Miles From San Berdoo", one of her more memorable 50s numbers.

From the opening scene, as Burr, exiled in Italy, listens to a short-wave radio broadcast of his successful career as an American crime kingpin ("Where is my money?" he demands, as an estimate of his revenue is quoted), to the brawling climax with Mitchum, aboard his yacht, as Price attempts a rescue, HIS KIND OF WOMAN is pure escapism, at it's best.

Here's hoping that a DVD edition may soon be released!

A broke California gambler is paid thousands to travel to a resort in Mexico and meet someone who'll instruct him on what comes next. The plot is initially quite muddled and does not become clear until about halfway through. It starts as a film noir, turns into a romantic comedy, and finishes with furious action. Russell is a sultry presence and she and Mitchum have good chemistry. However, Price steals the film in a hilarious turn as a hammy Hollywood actor. The action scenes are not convincing. The bad guys take forever to aim their guns, allowing Mitchum and Price adequate time to react. There is also a ridiculously protracted scene where bad guys try to stick a needle into Mitchum.

The central character of `His Kind of Woman' is Dan Milner, a down-on-his luck gambler, who is persuaded by local villains to undertake a mysterious assignment that involves his travelling to a luxury Mexican holiday resort. On arriving there, Miler meets and falls for Lenore, the beautiful mistress of the famous actor Mark Cardigan. Lenore is hoping to marry Cardigan after he has obtained a divorce from his wife; he, however, is having second thoughts after being warned by his agent that a divorce would be bad for his clean-cut image. As the film progresses, the reason why Milner has been lured to the resort becomes clear; the man behind the scheme is Nick Ferraro, an Italian gangster who has been deported from the USA for his criminal activities. Ferraro wants to return without attracting the attention of the US authorities, and is hoping to do so using Milner's passport, having first disposed of Milner himself and undergone plastic surgery to make himself look like the dead man.

In a way, the film can be seen as three films in one. The opening scenes are shot in the dark, menacing film noir style. (Robert Mitchum appeared in a number of films of this type around this period). When Milner arrives in the resort the mood becomes lighter, and the film resembles more one of those `sophisticated' comedies about divorce and adultery that were the nearest that the fifties got to sex comedies. When the villains arrive and the nature of their plans becomes clear, the mood of the film changes again. It does not, however, revert to the dark mood of the opening scenes, but rather resembles a comedy action-thriller as Milner and his allies (principally Cardigan) try to thwart Ferraro and his designs.

Despite these shifts from one style of film-making to another, the film hangs together reasonably well. The real star performance comes from Vincent Price as Cardigan, the sort of `luvvie' actor who overacts as much in real life as he does in the swashbuckling roles for which he has become famous, and whose conversation is enlivened by frequent resort to Shakespearean or pseudo-Shakespearean language. Cardigan is delighted to be caught up in a real crime drama, as it gives him a chance to act out his on-screen persona for real. (I found myself wondering if his character was based on Errol Flynn). Although he is at times outshone by Price, Mitchum succeeds in making Milner a likeable hero despite his rather seedy past. Jane Russell was not the greatest of actresses, but here she brings the necessary touch of glamour and sex-appeal to the part of Lenore. There are, as other reviewers have pointed out, holes in the plot, but given that this is light-hearted entertainment, played as much for laughs as for thrills, these should not trouble the viewer too much. Not a classic, but still very enjoyable for all that. 7/10.

This is an odd but entertaining film.

Don't take any of the story too seriously -- the film seems to be a satire of classic cliches including a slick but really, really evil villain vs. the crude but sort-of worthy hero. I don't want to spoil it for you, but it does have a happy ending which should come as no surprise. The real treat of the film is Price mocking himself as a B-picture actor who gets a chance to be heroic and plays it for all the melodrama it's worth.