The Crooked Way (1949)

The Crooked Way is a good stylish B noir that deserves to be a lot better known than it is. This 1949 United Artists release has a lot going for it with John Alton’s superb cinematography being a highlight.

Eddie Rice (John Payne) is a war veteran without a past. He has a piece of shrapnel lodged in his brain and he is suffering from amnesia. As the doctor explains to him, this is not the sort of amnesia than can be treated by psychotherapy. It’s organic and it’s permanent. There is however a way he can regain something at least of his past. Army records show he enlisted in Los Angeles so the chances are that’s where he lived. If he goes back there he may find someone who knew him, someone who can fill in the blanks in his life.

Eddie soon discovers that while he can remember nothing of his life there are plenty of people who remember him. They remember him as Eddie Riccardi. And none too fondly either. He makes the unsettling discovery that he was a hoodlum. That’s bad enough, but he double-crossed his partner in crime, Vince Alexander (Sonny Tufts), by turning state’s evidence against him. Vince is now a major gang boss and he’s a man who is not inclined to forgive or forget.

The police don’t remember Eddie with much affection either. They assume he’s back in town to pick up his criminal career where he left off. They’re not going to be very helpful to him and Eddie will soon need all the help he can get.

Vince’s initial reaction is to have Eddie beaten up. He considers killing him but he comes up with a better idea. If Eddie sticks around Vince may be able to get his revenge and have Eddie help him out of a tight spot. Vince has had one of his men killed for sqealing to the cops so maybe he can pin the murder on Eddie. That would be a nice way to get his revenge. And subsequent events provide Vince with an even better chance to frame Eddie and escape the rap for an even bigger crime.

Eddie’s only possible ally is Nina (Ellen Drew). Nina works in Vince’s gambling joint but she is also Eddie’s ex-wife. Eddie Riccardi treated Nina very badly, but Eddie is not Eddie Riccardi any more. Eddie Riccardi died when he took that piece of shrapnel in Italy during the war. Now he’s a different man, but can he convince Nina of that? And he needs Nina’s help badly.

Eddie Rice might have the same personality traits as Eddie Riccardi but he knows the mistakes Eddie Riccardi made, the mistakes that led him to choose the crooked way. Eddie is older and wiser and since he has no memories of his unpleasant past he hasn’t been hardened and twisted by that life. He is the man Eddie Riccardi might have been if he’d made smarter choices.

Of course the really smart thing for Eddie Rice to do would be to get out of LA and start a new life somewhere else. Start the decent life he now wants. Get an honest job, get married, have a family. That’s the sort of life that Eddie Rice would like. There are however two reasons why he can’t just do that. The first reason is that Vince has now got him embroiled in big trouble with the cops. The second reason is that just as Eddie Riccardi once loved Nina, Eddie Rice now finds he’s falling for her as well. And she is his ex-wife and if he’s going to find redemption he’s not going to find it by running out on her again, especially as she is now just as deeply involved in the mess Vince has gotten Eddie into as Eddie himself.

Amnesia was a bit of an obsession with Hollywood in the 40s. This is one of the more successful attempts to deal with this theme. Of course the plot requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief but the movie is sufficiently well-crafted to provide that. The amnesia theme also neatly gives us a classic noir set-up - Eddie Riccardi may have been a gangster but Eddie Rice is an innocent man, and a decent man, who is being sucked into the noir nightmare world.

John Payne was always good in film noir. He conveys the right blend of toughness and sensitivity and his tendency to underplay his performances is perfect for noir. Eddie Rice doesn’t have time to indulge himself in self-pity - he’s too busy trying to survive.

Sonny Tufts is an excellent villain, playing Vince as a man always on the edge of violence. Ellen Drew is quite competent as the heroine who combines the attributes of the noir good girl with just a hint of femme fatale. She’s not a bad woman but she’s been hardened by her life and she’s no angel.

Director Robert Florey had a long career in film and later in television and he knew how to make a solid no-nonsense B crime thriller.

Of course the real star, as so often, is John Alton’s moody cinematography. No-one ever did noir cinematography better than Alton. He captures the noir mood effortlessly and gives us a wonderfully seedy but compulsively watchable view of the underside of LA in the 40s.

Geneon’s Region 1 DVD is barebones but it’s an acceptable if not pristine transfer and since it comes at a budget price it’s worth grabbing.

The Crooked Way is content to be a very good well-made B movie and I highly recommend it.

The Reckless Hour (1931)

The Reckless Hour isn’t one of the great pre-code movies but it’s worth a look if only for the performances.

Margie Nichols (Dorothy Mackaill) models clothes for a fashion house. She lives with her parents and her sister above her father’s bookshop. Her father is rather dotty but he’s a kind old gentleman who worships his daughters. Margie has been dating Harry Gleason (Joe Donahue) but she’s not really that interested. He’s not rich enough or glamorous enough for her. That’s fine by Myrtle (Joan Blondell) because if Margie doesn’t want him she’d be happy to take him off her hands.

It’s pretty clear that underneath her surface sophistication and glamour Margie has a lot less understanding of men than Myrtle has. Myrtle can look at Harry and see that while he’s not an obvious great catch he’s a nice guy and basically decent and a girl could do a lot worse. Myrtle has a firm grip on reality and if a halfway decent man comes along she intends to get a firm grip on him as well.

Margie has meanwhile found what she imagines is the ideal man. Allen Crane (Walter Byron)  is rich and handsome and he and his friends have lots of fun. The more level-headed Myrtle hears the alarm bells going straight away. If a man seems too good to be true, run. And this one has cad written all over him.



Margie however has convinced herself that he loves her and that they will be married. Pretty soon they’re sleeping together.

Of course you can see what’s going to happen next but Margie can’t see it at all. The inevitable disaster ensues.

Margie’s father stands by her but his loyalty to his daughter will have unfortunate consequences. Needing money urgently for Margie’s sake he gets sucked into a get-rich-quick scheme and that turns out the way you’d expect it to as well.



Allen Crane’s friend Edward Adams (Conrad Nagel) is a different kettle of fish. While Allen is not ready for the responsibilities of marriage (and probably never will be) Edward has already taken that step. And he’s been hurt as badly as Margie has. It’s made him bitter towards women but underneath the bitterness he’s quite a nice guy (and more of man than Allen will ever be) and he’s rather taken by Margie. The question is, can she penetrate his cynical bitter exterior to get to the real man underneath? And does she still have a chance for happiness?

The plot was old even in 1931. Allen is a stock-standard melodrama cad and Margie is a stock-standard naïve poor girl just waiting for a cad to come along and ruin her.



Director John Francis Dillon isn’t exactly inspired either, so this movie has quite a few things running against it. What saves it are the performances.

Dorothy Mackaill is one of the great forgotten Hollywood actresses. A big star in the silent era she seemed to be making a successful transition to talkies in the early 30s but the end of the pre-code era also marked the end of her career. She did virtually nothing at all after 1934. That’s a great pity because she was a fine actress and she manages not to make Margie’s naïvete irritating, which is quite a feat. She gets the blend of innocence and surface sophistication just right and she manages to be hardboiled and vulnerable at the same time.



Joan Blondell once again finds herself in a supporting role, which was pretty much the story of her career, always playing the heroine’s best friend (or as in this case the heroine’s sister). As late as 1957 in Desk Set she was still playing the female lead’s best friend! As always she’s delightful and funny and engagingly sassy.

The male characters are less developed but Conrad Nagel is impressive while Walter Byron is an entertaining if predictable cad. H. B. Warner gives the role of Margie’s father the combination of dignity and kindliness that it requires.



Warner’s made-on-demand DVD includes this picture and other Dorothy Mackaill pre-code film, Bright Lights. The prints are unrestored and there are occasional sound problems but picture quality is generally good. Given the obscurity of these movies this is the best they’re ever going to look and this double feature is worth grabbing.

A movie that is worth seeing if only for Dorothy Mackaill and Joan Blondell. Recommended  as long as your expectations aren’t too high. And it does have a considerable quantity of pre-code frankness about pre-marital and extra-marital sex.

There’s Always Tomorrow (1956)

There’s Always Tomorrow is one of Douglas Sirk’s lesser-known melodramas but it’s still typical of the 1950s Sirk style.

It was made at Universal in 1956, with Ross Hunter as producer. As such you’d expect it to be in Technicolor but on occasions Sirk reverted to black-and-white and did so very effectively.

Clifford Groves (Fred MacMurray) has everything he ever wanted. He wanted to marry Marion (Joan Bennett) and he married her. He lover her and she loves him. He has a comfortable home and three healthy kids. He runs a successful toy-making business which is clearly something of a labour of love. That’s what he wanted - stability, prosperity, a job he loves, marriage and children.

So why isn’t he happier? It’s not that he’s aware of being overtly unhappy. There just seems to be something missing. He has a feeling of disappointment, of emptiness.

The fact is that Clifford Groves feels under-appreciated. He has devoted his life to being a good husband and a good father but sometimes it’s nice to be told you’re appreciated. It’s not that Clifford’s wife and children don’t love him but he’s become just part of the furniture. He doesn’t feel that he’s central in their lives. He fees that he is being taken for granted.



He plans a special night out for his wife’s birthday but she cancels out on him. So then he plans a romantic weekend getaway for just the two of them and she cancels out again. He’s trying his best and he feels hurt. He’s a nice guy and he’s a very decent man but this is all too typical of his life. No matter how hard he tries he seems to just fade into the background. Which is one reason the decision to shoot the movie in black-and-white was the correct one. Clifford Groves’ life isn’t black; it’s a sort of dull grey.

And then he meets Norma again. Norma (Barbara Stanwyck) helped him to set up his toy business twenty years earlier and they dated for a while. Nothing serious ever came of it but they were fond of each other. Norma has been in New York for the last twenty years and now has a successful fashion designing business. She just happens to be in LA and she looks him up. And suddenly Clifford’s world isn’t so grey any more.



Norma is vibrant and fun. They enjoy being together. They meet up again at a desert resort and they have a wonderful time, doing all the things that Clifford used to enjoy doing but has given up because he has no-one to do these things with. It’s all quite innocent - just two lonely middle-aged people enjoying one another’s company. It’s so innocent that Clifford makes no secret of it. He tell his wife all about Norma. Marion isn’t jealous at all. She even invites Norma over for dinner. And that perhaps is a symptom of where their marriage has gone wrong - Norma is glamorous and exciting and Marion should be jealous but she takes Clifford so much for granted that the idea that he might have an affair doesn’t even occur to her.

Not that he and Norma have any intention of having an affair. He’s not the sort of man who chases other women. But Norma makes him feel alive again and it’s a dangerous situation. If Marion had actually become jealous everything would probably have worked out harmlessly - at least if she’d become jealous Clifford would have known that she was still interested in him and that would probably have been enough to make him realise he wasn’t interested in an affair. Now things are really starting to get dangerous.



Norma’s motivations are a little obscure, which is not a fault with the movie but rather it’s one of its strengths. Norma herself possibly was not aware of the reasons she suddenly decided to look Clifford up after all these years. Or was she? Did she have some vague notion about starting up their relationship again? It’s obvious that twenty years earlier she was a lot more serious about it than Clifford was, and although she was later briefly married it appears that she never quite got Clifford out of her system. It’s not that she had any conscious intention of having an affair with him but again it contributes to the dangerousness of the situation. Her old love for Clifford could very easily be rekindled into a blazing fire. And given the way Clifford feels about being under-appreciated he could easily find himself falling for Norma in a big way.

To complicate matters his son Vinnie spotted them at the resort and has convinced himself that they’re already having a tempestuous love affair. Now Vinnie is making life very difficult.



This is the sort of material that Sirk always handled well. While critics like to talk about Sirk’s irony his sensitivity towards characters who are vulnerable or lonely is sometimes not noticed as much as it should be. Sirk’s 1950s movies were often dismissed at the time as soap operas and while they are unashamed melodramas they’re melodrama approached seriously. His characters might seem like soap opera characters but they feel real pain. Their dramas are real to them.

Sirk is helped considerably in this one by the faultless casting and the extremely fine performances. Fred MacMurray, a very underrated actor, makes Clifford into a very sympathetic character. He’s a character who could easily be made to look merely pathetic but MacMurray gives him dignity which helps to soften the edges of Sirk’s irony (which is certainly present in this movie). Stanwyck plays Norma with intelligent ambiguity. Marion could easily have become a mere unsympathetic uncaring wife stereotype as well but Joan Bennett doesn’t allow that to happen. Just as Stanwyck resists the temptation to make Norma conniving Bennett resists the temptation to make Marion shrewish. Marion has hurt Clifford but she has done so without realising it and without malice. So we’re never quite sure which way Clifford will jump, and we’re never quite sure which way we want him to jump.



This is another Sirk tale of the perfect American life gone wrong, the American dream that has not turned out to be the fairy tale it appears to be on the surface, but the irony is less savage than usual this time around.

This is melodrama but it’s very superior melodrama and the performances anchor it in reality so that we never forget that these are real people who can experience real suffering, even in a perfect suburban home. Highly recommended.

Eureka’s Region 2 DVD is a superb widescreen presentation and the movie looks as stunning as a Sirk movie should look.

Chase a Crooked Shadow (1958)

Chase a Crooked Shadow is an excellent little 1958 British mystery thriller directed by Michael Anderson. It was made by Associated British Pictures and produced by Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

Anderson had a very long and fairly interesting career as a director in a variety of genres.

Chase a Crooked Shadow is set in Spain. Wealthy young socialite Kimberley Prescott (Anne Baxter) has a villa there. She is seeking seclusion after a series of family tragedies the year before - her father committed suicide and her brother Ward was killed in a car accident. Her quest for peace and tranquility comes to an end when her dead brother (played by Richard Todd) arrives on the doorstep.

The idea of someone claiming to be a long-lost relative suddenly turning up, usually to claim a share of the family fortune, is an old one but this time there’s a major twist. In most such plots the long-lost relative has been lost for so long that no-one is really sure if the new arrival is the person he claims to be. In this one both the sister and the audience know quite well he is a fraud. In a brief prologue we see him planning the deception with his accomplice.

So given that Kimberley identified Ward’s dead body after the car accident, how does this impostor hope to get away with his plan? There are two factors in his favour. Firstly, Kimberley is in a foreign country isolated from the rest of her family so she has no-one to back her up. And secondly she had a mental breakdown after her father’s death so the fake Ward can claim that she is still unstable. He manages to convince Police Commissar Vargas (Herbert Lom) that Kimberley is slightly unbalanced mentally and is playing a joke on him by pretending not to recognise him. Since the fake Ward’s papers are all in order it proves quite easy to convince Vargas.

Since we know this man is not her brother the mystery in this film comes from our uncertainty as to his intentions and as to how Kimberley will extricate herself from this dangerous situation.

And the movie has some nifty plot twists still up its sleeve.

Kimberley’s father had been a wealthy diamond magnate but when the company struck difficult times it was discovered than ten million pounds’ worth of diamonds had disappeared from the company safe. The diamonds have not been seen since.

Kimberley’s discomfort is increased by the fact that her supposed brother has dismissed all her servants and installed his own in the villa so now there is nobody at all to back her up. Mostly what makes her uneasy is that she has no idea what this man wants. Does he want what’s left of the Prescott fortune? Does he have some idea of finding those missing diamonds? Is he just trying to send her mad? She appeals to Commissar Vargas again but he insists there is nothing he can do. There is no evidence of a crime. Vargas is a very easy-going fellow who dislikes trouble but he is still a cop and he’s much less of a fool than he appears to be. In fact he’s no fool at all and his policeman’s instinct tell him that there is something strange going on here, something that perhaps he should look into a little more deeply.

So far the movie has given us no indication of exactly where it’s going and the mystery will deepen as those plot twists kick in. The atmosphere of unease and mystery will deepen. Anderson’s skillful direction keeps the mystery bubbling along. It’s also quite stylish in an unobtrusive way - he uses strange camera angles at times but he uses them sparingly and he always uses them for a reason.

Anne Baxter is very good, never succumbing to the temptation to push her performance into the realms of hysteria but still managing to convey Kimberley’s growing fears. Richard Todd is charming but sinister. Herbert Lom, one of the great character actors, makes Vargas a frustratingly sympathetic character. He is suspicious but reluctant to act. We know he’s smart enough to figure out that something is amiss but we keep waiting for him to do something about it.

This was the golden age of the British mystery thriller and this is a very good example of the genre. It becomes more and more a psychological thriller as Kimberley’s sanity starts to teeter on the edge of giving way.

Optimum’s Region 2 DVD is a beautiful transfer. It’s in the correct 1.33:1 aspect ratio.

Highly recommended.

Safe in Hell (1931)

Safe in Hell is one of the more notorious of pre-code movies and this 1931 First National production certainly lives up to its sleazy reputation.

Gilda Erickson (Dorothy Mackaill) is a call girl in New Orleans. One of her clients turns out to be an old flame of hers turns up one day, a man named Piet van Saal. Piet is a small-time hoodlum and Gilda wants nothing to do with him. They have an argument and Piet ends up dead and the building sort of accidentally catches fire and burns down.

Unfortunately Gilda was spotted going into the building and now she’s wanted for murder. Now another old flame of hers turns up. Carl (Donald Cook) is a sailor and he’s actually a nice guy and he’s crazy about her. He gets a bit upset when he finds out she’s been working as a prostitute but now she’s in trouble and Carl is going to help her out. He smuggles her on board his ship and drops her off on the Caribbean island of Tortuga. Tortuga is not a signatory to any extradition treaties so she’s in no danger of being sent back to the US to face trial.

She and Carl had intended to get married but found that the island’s only clergyman had died. They perform their own marriage ceremony. It might not be legal but in their hearts they know they are married.

Not surprisingly the only hotel on the island is full of assorted crooks, including a South American general who is proud to have led no less than three successful revolutions. He fancies himself as the only gentleman on the island, and gentleman is certainly not a word one would use to describe the hotel’s other guests. They are assorted murderers, thieves and crooked lawyers. They’re all safe from extradition, but as one of them wryly puts it it, they might be safe but they’re safe in Hell.

Gilda is the only white woman on the island so naturally all the men are interested in getting to know her better, so to speak. Gilda considers herself to be a married woman and she’s determined to be true to him but finally the boredom gets the better of her and she leaves her room to party with them.

Gilda ends up with a hangover but her honour is still safe. However an event is about to occur which will throw her for a loop. Another crook on the run arrives on the island, and it turns out to be Piet. He’s not dead after all. His arrival is good news and bad news for Gilda. She’s now free to return to New Orleas but first she has to deal with Piet’s attentions, which are disturbingly determined.

Gilda has another problem. The island’s official executioner, who also doubles as the governor of the island’s prison and a sort of unofficial chief of police, takes a shine to her. He’s even more sleazy than the crooks and a lot more dangerous. Maybe Gilda isn’t safe in Hell after all.

Dorothy Mackaill is very good, managing to be both a convincing prostitute and yet strangely innocent in her love for Carl. Donald Cook is a slightly dull leading man and really doesn’t get all that much screen time. Luckily the supporting cast is strong.

The movie pulls no punches when it comes to Gilda’s profession but what really marks this as a pre-code classic is the all-pervading atmosphere of sleaziness. It’s wonderfully seedy as well. In the 40s Hollywood would glamourise the tropics but in the world of pre-code cinema the tropics usually stood for sex, sin and madness in movies like Kongo and Rain. Safe in Hell actually has quite a bit in common with  Rain - in both cases there’s the same feeling of claustrophobia and incipient craziness engendered by the boredom and heat of a tropical island. Dorothy Mackaill doesn’t make quite as good a hooker as Joan Crawford but she gives it her best shot.

William A. Wellman directed quite a few notable pre-code features and he’s in good form here.

The Warner Archive DVD-R gives us a very acceptable print of this infamous sleaze classic. Essential viewing for pre-code fans.

A Blueprint for Murder (1953)

A Blueprint for Murder is a rather superior 1953 20th Century-Fox murder mystery with just a dash of film noir to it. It’s well-made but it’s biggest asset is the excellent cast.

Whitney 'Cam' Cameron (Joseph Cotten) rushes to the hospital to be with his sister-in-law. His niece Polly has suddenly been stricken by a mysterious illness. She keeps screaming to the nurses not to touch her feet. She soon seems to be on the road to recovery but then has an equally unexplained relapse and dies.



Polly and her brother Doug were the children of Cam’s brother who died some years earlier. Their mother died many years earlier but the brother’s second wife Lynn (Jean Peters) raised the children as her own.

So far it seems like just a straightforward family tragedy and that’s what Cam assumes it to be until he starts talking to his friends Fred and Maggie Sargent. Maggie (Catherine McLeod) is a pulp writer and some time earlier she’d been doing research on poisons for a murder mystery. What bothers Maggie is that Polly’s symptoms, although they could be explained by a number of illnesses, do just happen to be the symptoms of strychnine poisoning. And Polly’s father’s symptoms just before he died were very much the same. Of course there’s probably nothing in it, but still it is odd.



And then Fred (Gary Merrill) mentions that he had prepared Cam’s brother’s will and that all the money was left in trust to the children. But if both children were to die Lynn would get everything. And the estate is a very substantial one indeed. So Lynn would in fact have a motive for murdering Polly, and she’d also have a motive for murdering the surviving child, Doug. Cam was very fond of both children. After their father’s death he was the closest thing they had to a father and being childless himself the two children were the closest thing he had to a family. He’s particularly fond of his nephew.

Of course they all realise that this is just wild supposition but they can’t help feeling slightly uneasy, especially when Cam mentions that Lynn was anxious to have Polly cremated although he’d managed to talk her out of it. They feel so uneasy that they persuade the police medical examiner to perform an autopsy. And sure enough, Polly is found to have died from a massive dose of strychnine.



The police now view the case as murder and Lynn is their prime suspect but as the homicide cops point out to Cam it’s incredibly difficult to get a conviction in a poisoning case. In fact it’s almost impossible without a confession.

Cam is now haunted by the fear that Doug will be Lynn’s next victim. But what can he do? The police believe Lynn is guilty but they don’t even have enough evidence to bring the case to trial, much less secure a conviction. Cam is almost insane with worry, to the point where a desperate plan suggests itself to him. But is Lynn really a murderess? No-one, least of all the audience, can be absolutely certain of that.



Writer-director Andrew Stone made a number of movies in the film noir and thriller genres during the 50s. He handles this one quite skillfully, slowly ratcheting up the tension as we see Cam becoming more and more convinced his nephew is going to be murdered. The final scene is particularly well done.

Joseph Cotten gives his usual reliable performance. The support cast is excellent with Gary Merrill and Catherine McLeod both excellent. But the movie belongs to Jean Peters. She’s the potential femme fatale here but she doesn’t play it that way - it’s a cool and controlled performance and Lynn really seems like a rather nice person. Despite the circumstantial evidence we find it hard to believe she could really murder anyone, and of course there’s always the possibility that she’s innocent. It’s really a superb performance.



This is a B-picture with an A-picture cast and with enough doubts about the outcome to keep the audience guessing right to the end. A very entertaining noirish mystery and highly recommended.

The DVD, in MGM’s Midnite Movies range (paired with  the Man in the Attic, comes with a warning that it is based on the best surviving film elements. That sounds ominous but don’t panic - it’s actually a very good print indeed.

Golden Earrings (1947)

Golden Earrings, made by Paramount in 1947, is a decidedly odd little film. For one thing, given that the movie stars Ray Milland and Marlene Dietrich, you’d expect that the golden earrings of the title would be worn by Marlene Dietrich. In fact they’re worn  by Ray Milland. And thereby hangs a tale.

It is 1946 and Major-General Ralph Denistoun (Milland) is a distinguished retired soldier. He’s well-liked and well-respected but there are a couple of intriguing mysteries about him. It is said that he was involved in a hush-hush cloak-and-dagger operation in Nazi Germany just before the war and had been captured. He came back a changed man. Changed for the better. He had been very much a regular army officer, all spit-and-polish and very proper and somewhat cold. When he returned he seemed to be a much more friendly and open chap, strangely happier and much warmer.

And the other mystery is, why on Earth does a retired British army officer have pierced ears?

An American journalist who encounters him rather hesitantly asks him about the ear piercings. Denistoun smilingly tells him it never was a secret, it’s just that no-one else had ever dared to ask him for an explanation. Denistoun then tells him his story.



Just before the outbreak of war Lieutenant-Colonel Denistoun (as he then was) and a young officer named Byrd were sent to Germany to make contact with a German scientist who had been working on a new poison gas. It all went horribly wrong and both Denistoun and Byrd were quickly captured. They managed to escape and then split up, arranging to rendezvous at a certain crossroads in a few days’ time.

On the night of his escape the weary and hungry Denistoun encounters a gypsy woman, Lydia (Marlene Dietrich). Oddly enough this gypsy woman was expecting him. The river spirits had told her that that night she would meet her man. One look at Ralph Denistoun and she is convinced that this is in fact the man for her.



Denistoun thinks this is silly superstitious gypsy nonsense but at the same time he is very hungry and he’s glad of the company and pretty soon he realises he might in fact be a lot safer travelling with Lydia than on his own. She’s strange and wild and rather uncouth and deeply eccentric but she knows the country and no-one takes much notice of gypsies. So Lydia turns him into a gypsy, with gypsy clothes and with his skin stained and with a pair of golden earrings. What he doesn’t yet know is that the earrings are more than just gypsy fashion accessories. They mean that he is now Lydia’s man.

The setup might lead you to believe that this is going to be an exciting spy adventure yarn but there’s actually not very much spy adventure stuff in this movie. It is very much a love story, and a very unconventional one.



Denistoun soon finds that he’s grown rather fond of this gypsy woman, despite some of her more outré habits (such as cleaning fish in bed and smearing cod liver oil on her hair, and even more disturbingly on his hair as well). With Lydia’s help he is able to evade recapture and eventually make his contact with the German scientist. And of course he is able to return safely to England after his mission (which is not a spoiler since we have known right from the start that Denistoun made it back to England). Along the way he finds himself having to fight the chief of the gypsy band, a man named Zoltan, with the prize being Lydia. After the fight Denistoun and Zoltan find themselves the best of friends.

But what happens to Denistoun and Lydia at the end? You’ll have to watch the movie to find that out.



This very offbeat romance is really so strange that it has no right to succeed, but somehow Milland and Dietrich make it work. They’re both terrific and they have a perfect chemistry - not so much a sexual chemistry (although that’s certainly part of it) as a warm and affectionate chemistry. We really do believe that this mismatched couple could fall in love.

There’s also some gentle humour, something that both Milland and Dietrich prove themselves to be very good at.

Mitchell Leisen directed and while he’s not perhaps the most visually inspired of directors it’s difficult to fault the job he does here. The screenplay, by Abraham Polonsky, Helen Deutsch and Frank Butler, is warm-hearted and amusing.



This movie is available on DVD as part of Universal’s superb Marlene Dietrich Glamour Collection boxed set and the transfer is faultless.

Not a great movie perhaps but a thoroughly enjoyable and quirky love story that offers Dietrich the opportunity to have a wonderful time overacting outrageously but very entertainingly. Recommended.