Max Catto's novel turned into a very odd love triangle involving two skippers of a smuggling vessel in the Caribbean with a luckless red-haired beauty, an immigrant from perhaps Lithuania, who needs to get to Cuba. British production is erratic, with location shots and studio close-ups often occupying the same scene, though the busy, fiery locals are a fun lot (they always seem to be celebrating). Second-half of plot takes a bizarre turn, with sensitive skipper Jack Lemmon getting trapped in the cargo of a burning ship and relying on Robert Mitchum, his old friend/sworn enemy, to pull him through. Mitchum and Lemmon are certainly one of the oddest twosomes in '50s cinema, but they don't play it buddy-buddy and the relationship is kept low-keyed. As the woman who comes between them, Rita Hayworth gets an amusingly irrelevant sequence dancing at Carnivale, but otherwise looks about as beat as her character is supposed to feel (I don't know if this was a case of Method acting or not). The picture isn't boring--nor ham-handed--but neither is it successful as a drama, character study, or action film. It seems to fall between the cracks, but fans of the star-trio should enjoy some of the fireworks. ** from ****
