His Kind of Woman (1951)
His Kind of Woman (1951)
Howard Hughes was the executive producer of this film-noir crime drama thriller (with some comedic elements); John Farrow (Wake Island (1942)) was its director. It was written by Frank Fenton and Jack Leonard and stars Robert Mitchum Jane Russell Vincent Price Tim Holt Charles McGraw Marjorie Reynolds Raymond Burr Leslie Banning Jim Backus Philip Van Zandt John Mylong and Carleton Young. Mitchum plays a ‘down on his luck’ professional gambler whose identity because of his similar physical characteristics and a life that includes no family nor even close friends deported Italian gangster Burr wants to steal in order to reenter the United States to get back to running his crime business(es). For much of the film Mitchum’s character is clueless as to why some thugs have offered and/or forced him into accepting $50000 incrementally to vacation at a remote Mexican resort lodge (run by Van Zandt’s character). En-route he meets Russell’s character a lounge singer pretending to be a wealthy single girl who’s rendezvousing with a married swashbuckling actor (Price) that’s presumably being divorced by his wife (Reynolds) who’s in Reno. But of course Russell turns out to be Mitchum’s kind of woman. Holt plays an immigration official who finally clues in Mitchum before his character is killed by one of Burr’s heavies (McGraw). Banning plays a pretty newlywed that Backus’s character hopes to force into an affair by cheating her husband into a big gambling debt playing cards. The fun comes in the film’s final third when Price’s character who’s an avid hunter that’s befriended Mitchum’s and yearns for real vs. cinematic adventure gets involved with trying to save his newfound friend from his fate and ‘date’ with Burr who’s got a plastic surgeon (Mylong) ready for the task. Young plays Price’s agent who arrives with Reynolds hoping to smooth out any negative publicity regarding the actor’s affair with Russell then finds himself trying to keep the actor from killing himself by attempting to rescue Mitchum from the gangster.
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