Lábios de Fogo

No-one would ever accuse "Fire Down Below" of being a good film but photographed in Cinemascope and Technicolour on location in the Caribbean it's certainly a handsome one, Throw in Robert Mitchum, Rita Hayworth and Jack Lemmon and it becomes a film with star quality as well. The plot is as old as the hills as pals Mitchum and Lemmon fall out over Hayworth, the woman they are transporting 'from nowhere to nowhere'. The film generates a little excitement, (though not much), when Lemmon gets trapped in a ship that is about to blow up. The terrible dialogue is courtesy of Irwin Shaw from a book by Max Catto and director Robert Parrish was hardly the man to turn a pig's ear into a silk purse.

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 ****

Rita Hayworth was 40 at the time this film was made. Rather interesting. She still looked lovely. Robert Mitchum and Jack Lemmon are both vying for her attention; Mitchum wins out momentarily.

Toward the end the story shifts as Lemmon is trapped in a ship, there is a fire, and Lemmon becomes a more sympathetic character. Mitchum and Hayworth feel guilty. This story would seem ripe for a re-make; it is a good story; rather a curiosity.

The Technicolor oranges and greens are prevalent; it is always interesting to watch films from this period. It would seem the stars themselves were fabricated to coordinate with the surroundings. The scenes at the carnival event are colorful and wild. Worth seeing as a commentary on the times.

Rita Hayworth, Robert Mitchum, and Jack Lemmon star in "Fire Down Below," a 1957 film.

Hayworth plays Irena, a woman with a mysterious European past and no passport. Mitchum and Lemmon are Felix and Tony, who run a ferry boat in the Caribbean. They are paid to take Irena to another island.

Felix (Mitchum) knows she's trouble and worse than that, he's attracted to her. Tony (Lemmon) falls for Irena and, when she leaves the ferry, he accompanies her.

The film takes an odd turn here - Tony wants to marry Irena, so he takes a job transporting illegal goods to get some money together. But someone has tipped off the police. Tony and his associate escape, and Tony ends up on a Greek ship. The ship has an accident, and Tony is trapped in the hold.

This film starts out as one thing - a love triangle, a mysterious woman with a checkered past, two friends who become enemies - and becomes the story of a man facing death in the cargo hold of a ship.

That part goes on too long, and we don't see the happenings on dry land. We are told about them toward the end of the film. It just felt like something was missing.

There are suspenseful moments and good acting. Mitchum plays the sardonic Felix well, and Lemmon is, as always, likable as Tony and handles both the light and dramatic scenes very well.

I do think for this role his casting was somewhat strange. I think like Hayworth he was trying to fulfill contractual obligations to Columbia.

Hayworth is a long way from her Gilda days, but a striking woman. Her hard life, like the life of the character, has caught up with her. She doesn't display a lot of range in the role but has a knockout dance number during Mardi Gras that is very much the old Rita.

Interesting for the cast.

FIRE DOWN BELOW is watchable for the performances of ROBERT MITCHUM, RITA HAYWORTH and JACK LEMMON, as well as some good supporting actors, but there's a major disappointment.

The first half of the film deals with relationships and just starts to get added interest from the Mitchum-Hayworth chemistry when the story shifts gears and turns the rest of the plot over to Jack Lemmon for the film's climactic sub-plot. Ordinarily, this would have been fine, but not when viewers are expecting to see the Mitchum-Hayworth pairing develop into a deeper story of its own.

There's a lot of local color and some gorgeous scenery in Trinidad and Jamaica, but the story is an uninspired one that finally gets going once Hayworth enters the scene, then evaporates once she and Mitchum are given less to do.

Lemmon is fine as the happy go lucky, naive sort of bumbler he always played at this stage in his career. Hayworth is an even more jaded version of "Gilda" (maturing now and still quite attractive), and Mitchum is his usual laconic self.

Uneven as drama but watchable for its star appeal.