Review of Macao (1952) by Edith N — 01 Mar 2011

The Only Tribute I Can Give Her.

Jane Russell died. Doubtless the majority reaction to this fact is divided between "Jane Russell was still alive?" and "Who?" Which I can understand; she hadn't acted in a movie since 1970 or on TV since 1986. At that, she didn't act in a lot of memorable stuff anyway. I've never even heard of several of her movies, and I haven't seen her most infamous. What's more, when I watched this last week, I didn't review it, because I couldn't quite come up with anything to say. It's several stars in a sweaty movie set in a sweaty place. (Per Wikipedia, the average humidity ranges from about 75% to as high as 90%.) It has the feel but not the quality of certain classics, and it's got sexually charged banter between Russell and Robert Mitchum. I wasn't sure I could build a review out of that. But I'm going to try today, because Jane Russell deserved a better shake than she got from the industry.

She is Julie Benson; Mitchum is Nick Cochran. They, like so many others, seem to have ended up where they are because they have nowhere else to go. She's a decent-but-not-great cabaret performer. He was in the army, in the War, and he's been drifting ever since. She only gets by through running cons, it seems, which includes talking someone into paying for her ticket with the promise that they'd "have a few laughs," then getting mad at him for inferring exactly what she was implying in the first place. She also steals Nick's wallet, including his passport, which means he attracts the attention of the police in the person of Lieutenant Sebastian (Thomas Gomez). Both Julie and Nick end up coming to the attention of Seedy Underworld Figure Vincent Halloran (Brad Dexter), another American whose greatest concern is the three-mile limit--international waters. Halloran knows that the Americans would love to get him out there so they can arrest him. And so all sorts of Shady Dealings go on.

Part of my problem was that I didn't a hundred percent understand what was going on at any given moment. I mean, it was obvious that Nick was going for Julie. It was obvious that Julie was most concerned for herself. There were some stolen diamonds, and I think Lawrence C. Trumble (William Bendix), ostensibly a traveling salesman and smalltime smuggler, was also an undercover cop. However, I'm not sure I ever worked out why exactly the Americans were after Halloran. There was an implication that neither Nick nor Julie could return to the States, but I'm not sure why or even if that was true. Both Jane Russell and Robert Mitchum were playing the sort of characters Jane Russell and Robert Mitchum tended to play--she's streetwise and out for herself. He's world-weary and looking for a decent shot. With, of course, the prospect that there's something shady going on. As I've said before, though he played about as many good guys and bad, he's in my head as playing a lot more bad guys.

There is a certain appeal to the exotic location. This story could have taken place in a number of different places around the world, even with the three-mile limit taken into consideration. However, there's something about Macao. Indeed, most movies with places in the title are set in places which seem more exciting; that's only logic. Algiers, for example, is more appealing as the setting of a movie than Peoria. Casablanca has a very different feel to it than Albuquerque. (We may safely take [i]Fargo[/i] as the exception, especially given the prosaic nature of the city is half the point.) I don't think most people have the faintest idea where Macao even is. (For the record, it is an independent economic zone in China which was until a little over ten years ago a Portuguese colony. It's subtropical and averages about seventy-two degrees year 'round.) What we know is that it's different. Maybe dangerous. [i]Exotic.[/i] The place where a woman like Jane Russell may well be the only kind of American woman you'd meet. The place where you need to be a tough guy like Robert Mitchum.

If you're planning to watch a movie in tribute of Jane Russell, you would do a lot better to check out [i]Gentlemen Prefer Blondes[/i]. Netflix has it on Instant Play--along with the sequel, [i]Gentlemen Marry Brunettes[/i], which I've never seen. However, it does make me kind of sad. It's a long-standing joke that there were two reasons to see [i]The Outlaw[/i], but I really do think there was more to Jane Russell than that. Her voice wasn't great, but it was at least as good as Marilyn Monroe's. She managed to combine the sultry performance which started her on the road to fame with a dry wit, which was what made her such a great foil in [i]Blondes[/i] in the first place. Oh, I don't think she was a great actress, though my old California history teacher, Mrs. Nicholson, says she was a fairly nice person. But I don't think Howard Hughes did her such a service as all that by promoting her assets.