L'île au complot

If you like a full cast of great veteran actors, this B&W film is perfect to entertain you from beginning to the very end. Robert Taylor,(Rigby) is a Government Agent assigned to investigate the misuse of Government surplus from World War II and mostly airplane engines that were being smuggled out of Central America and sold to other countries. Rigby is given some information to lead him in the right direction to find out just who is involved in this operation. Ava Gardner, Elizabeth Hintten, is married to John Hodiak,(Tug Hintten) and Rigby gets very involved with this couple and especially Tug's wife. There is a creepy, dirty fat looking guy, played by Charles Laughton,(J.J. Bealer) who follows Rigby like his own shadow. Vincent Price,(Carwood) met Rigby on the airplane going to Central America and met him once again for a fishing trip to catch a swordfish and Carwood gets confused and throws the boat's engine into reverse and causes all kinds of problems. If you like veteran actors giving outstanding performances, this is the film for you.

Federal agent Rigby (Robert Taylor) is sent to South America to stop a group smuggling aircraft engines, but falls for an alluring singer (Ava Gardner), who just happens to be the wife of one of the main suspects.

After reading not very positive reviews of this, I went into The Bribe with low expectations. It's got a great cast though: Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner, Charles Laughton, Vincent Price and John Hodiak.

I was pleasantly surprised. Being an MGM film, the set design, costumes and cinematography were top notch. The overwrought script and silly narration bog the film down a bit.

Taylor is his usual stolid self, Gardner was quite appealing (and beautiful as ever), while Price was good as the main baddie. However, the best actor is easily Charles Laughton. He gives an excellent performance as a henchman constantly complaining about his bad feet.

There's some good action sequences, especially the finale (directed by Vincente Minnelli!), involving a chase through a fireworks display. Good fun.

The Bribe (1949)

A loaded cast and crew make this an interesting draw (only the director Robert Leonard is little known to me, though he has two Best Director nominations). But really: Ava Gardner in a dramatic noir, with Robert Taylor the male lead (including a very noir voiceover to start). Throw in Charles Laughton and Vincent Price in smaller roles, and Joseph Ruttenberg doing cinematography and Miklos Rozsa the music. And it starts great, in a lonely room in Central America, rain pouring down the windows at night. And then the flashbacks begin. Maybe all this makes me a sucker. I expected a lot even with the clichés pouring on. But we have a formula noir here with all the elements exaggerated and none of them missed--the woman is even a nightclub singer, and wait for the drug in the drink later on. If you are willing to enjoy the form rather than the specifics of the movie, you have your film. It's almost great, and might someday be considered a classic simply because it makes so clear the elements of that form (the noir-alienated male, femme fatale, flashbacks, dramatic lighting, crime and treachery, short clipped phrases). It's so good at all this, it became the model for the comic send-up, "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid." But in a way this isn't fair, because the movie does work on its own, despite its lack of originality. It grows and gets better as you go, and the consistency of the production and the solidity of the plot make it worth seeing. Gardner is not great in the way some leading noir females are, but she has her sculptural poise and is still young as an actress. Taylor has sort of the same problem of not quite rising to the needs of the role, but he is fine. The fact that the two of them are not "amazing" is one of the holdbacks of the film--lots of noirs have formula plots but have such great acting it doesn't matter a bit. So Laughton, then, rising to the occasion, is really amazing. I've heard his performance called campy, but I don't think so, not for the genre. It's subtle, and if he's a character, he's not a caricature. Price, also good, has a someone limited role. Until the end. The final ten minutes is a film wonder. If you can't watch the whole thing for some reason, you can still be thrilled by the ending. The drama, the lighting, the photography, the pace and editing, it's all unparalleled.

The reflective voice-over narration was a staple of film noir, but here it boasts the conceit of Robert Taylor addressing it to himself in the second person ("You..."). That curious choice informs the first half of The Bribe, told in flashback; midway, we catch up to the present and the droning ceases. Starting as a routine foreign-intrigue drama -- something about surplus airplane motors, but who cares -- set in an island off Central America called Carlota (or sometimes Carlotta; the film can't quite decide), the film boasts a top-notch cast: Taylor, Ava Gardner, John Hodiak, Vincent Price and Charles Laughton, who could be either the most actorly of hams or the hammiest of actors but here opts for the latter. Most of the way through it's not bad, but in its second half the tone darkens noticeably, when director Leonard decides to treat us to some stylistic flourishes. The over-the-top, Wellsian-Hitchcockian climax is (literally) pyrotechnic, and actually stands as one of the more memorable sound-and-light shows in the whole noir cycle.

"The Bribe" is one of the forties film noir entries, and I love it! Top stars of the era include Robert Taylor, Ava Gardner, Charles Laughton, and Vincent Price. It is a story of an honest cop, Rigby played with remarkable insight, by Robert Taylor, who falls in love with a suspect (Ava Gardner), and can't make up his mind on if she is guilty or innocent. John Hodiak is the husband, who is a former fly boy turned crook. Charles Laughton is at his sinister best as the "pie shaped man" who is hired by Vincent Price to pay off Rigby. Laughton dogs Rigby, knowing that he is in love with Gardner, till he caves in and decides to take a bribe to save his love. As in many film noir, only Taylor's last name is used, we never know Rigby's first name, interesting. Taylor is very convincing as a man torn between love and honor. He is so conflicted, that you feel sorry for him, wishing that Ava would just run away with him before he turns crook himself. She drugs him and makes sure he can't stop the crooks, but he recovers, and confronts her, not realizing the trouble she is in herself. In the end, love and honor conquer all. There is a spectacular fireworks ending, that is reminiscent of "Ride the Pink Horse." All in all the love scenes are sincere, probably because Taylor and Gardner were having an affair at the time of filming, despite the fact that Taylor was very married to Barbara Stanwyck. Quintessential film noir.