À cause d'une chaussure

Robert Mitchum takes out his detective persona used as Philip Marlowe in Farewell My Lovely for this made for television movie One Shoe Makes It Murder. Mitchum reunites with Angie Dickinson who was his co-star in Young Billy Young on the big screen.

Mel Ferrer who plays a gambling casino owner with some mob connections hires Mitchum who is an alcoholic former cop to find his missing wife Cathie Shirriff. Seems easy enough, Sheriff is traced back to her own apartment in San Francisco. But right after Mitchum locates her he goes down the elevator and emerges just in time to see Shirriff land on the pavement with only one shoe on. One shoe on her body, one left on her apartment floor and therefore One Shoe Makes It Murder.

Or so thinks San Francisco Homicide Detective Jose Perez and the usual conflict between the police and private detectives that we see in a gazillion movies happens. I liked Perez's performance in the film, Mitchum really got under his skin.

Angie Dickinson plays Shirriff's good friend from the old days who knows that Shirriff had a past, a past she shared. Mitchum has to coax the truth out of her.

Ferrer researched Mitchum very well before hiring him. It's never spelled out but Mitchum apparently got a raw deal from the San Diego Police Department when he was canned. He became an alcoholic and even tried one suicide attempt. But somewhere in the research Ferrer decides Mitchum is his man and he does get to the truth though it's not something Ferrer wants to hear. Those old cop instincts kick in once he has a murder to solve.

One Shoe Makes It Murder is a good made for TV mystery with Mitchum doing as well here as he did as Philip Marlowe on the big screen. The story is hardly Raymond Chandler, but Mitchum, Dickinson, Ferrer and the rest make it work.

A tired Mitchum stars in this murder mystery about a Las Vegas casino owner who enlists the help of an out of practice private eye to find his missing wife. Lies, deception and murder follow in a routine fashion. For die hard mystery fans only.

Harold Shillman had been a good reputable cop but who had then turned to drink. When the mystery opens he has become an unlicensed private investigator taking on a job to find somebody's wife. That job changes after he tracks down the wife and there is an investigation with a possibility of it being a murder one case. This mystery progresses at a leisurely pace where we continually learn of peoples' past lives. Gradually some of those lives merge with each other to form a baffling intrigue. Robert Mitchum with his weary-sounding baritone voice is Shillman who has lost a lot of his confidence. He befriends a nice easy going woman called Faye (Angie Dickinson) who tries to give him back his manly confidence. She has a couple of ex husbands who pimp their way through life. Mel Ferrer plays Charnock who employs Shillman and Jose Perez is a Cuban-born detective. So a good cast and there are number of characters whose motives we cannot be sure of. The turning point comes when Shillman becomes really interested in the case for himself which brings him alive to start thinking like a cop gain to go on and solve the mystery.

Robert Mitchum is a private eye who has given up on life. He's hired by casino owner Mell Ferrer, someone has been cooking his books and he thinks his wife might be in danger because of it. Mitchum finds her quickly enough, but minutes after he leaves her apartment he witnesses her fall from her balcony to a sudden death. Inspector Jose Perez thinks it's murder due to one of her slippers being nowhere near the balcony while she was wearing the other one, and isn't crazy about Mitchum acting like a clam. Ferrer re-hires Mitchum however, this time to find out what happened to his wife. He eventually discovers that ex-hooker and barfly Angie Dickinson, who's been throwing herself at him ever since he stepped into the casino, might be the key to unlock the mystery.

This is a decent but unremarkable made-for-TV movie, which stands out due to the presence of Mitchum ('Out Of The Past') and Dickinson ('The Killers'). Mitchum plays the type of role he was made for, as a broken man who's so jaded by his past (which includes a failed suicide attempt) that he cannot even get it up for the sexy and affectionate Dickinson. Dickinson is good and gives her character a genuinely warm side, but because of it, the impact of her character on the dead wife's past is never really felt. The 'kindred spirit' chemistry between Mitchum and Dickinson works really well however, it is there, but neither character really knows how to act on it, and fall back in their old ways. Their scenes together, as well as Mitchum's world-weary lines and voice-over narration which is used extensively throughout this movie, are what make this movie stand out.

The movie itself plays out at a very leisurely pace, and doesn't really 'thrill', even tho it's competently made. It's just not an edge-of-your-seat mystery/thriller. Pretty routine work from director William Hale and DoP Terry K. Meade, with only an occasional creative shot such as when Mitchum witness the fall. The plot, based on a novel, is also pretty straight-forward and not too surprising. Watch this one for Mitchum and Dickinson's scenes.

Another viewer wrote that this was a poor movie.I disagree. I saw this on the late show years ago and then hunted down a rinky-dink video release of it. I have heard viewers comment that Mitchum didn't put much effort into his performance, but I think they're missing the direction he was going in. His character is the biggest burn-out, the biggest failure of a person I have ever seen in a movie.Bob's P.I. character has just plain given up on life and is completely numb. My favorite line in the movie is when Angie Dickenson is throwing herself at him,badgering him,and trying to get some kind of a rise out of him and he says "Lady, I don't FEEL anything". Sure the storyline and mystery element is kind of basic and nothing special, but for me the flick showcases a really interesting character study of the noir anti-hero. Mitchum was fantastic at these kinds of roles.Watch it again.