Crisis

Cary Grant is a noted surgeon traveling with his wife (Paula Raymond) in a Latin American country when there's a "Crisis."

This 1950 black and white film also stars Jose Ferrer, Leon Ames, Ramon Novarro, and Gilbert Roland. Grant, as Dr. Ferguson, and his wife are trying to leave the country due to political unrest when they are kidnapped and brought to the home of the country's dictator, Raoul Farrago (Ferrer).

There, they learn from his wife (Signe Hasso) that the leader is dying of a brain tumor, and options for an operation are few as no one wants him to live. Ferguson agrees on certain conditions.

Ultimately, his wife is involved in a riot, and he sends her home. It isn't until the surgery is over that he learns that certain things have been kept from him.

This is actually a very good and underrated film, not the usual Cary Grant type of role or movie, which in itself should have sparked some interest when it was released.

People know the handsome Grant and his debonair persona, his gift for physical comedy and the way he has with a line - but it's nice to remember occasionally that underneath all that star power and tailored suits there's a fine actor.

Here he plays a man who makes a commitment to a patient he plainly doesn't like, and he has to fight to control his emotions. His anger over the situation makes this difficult.

Ferrer is terrific as a violent man who thinks of his people as dumb children as he feathers his own nest with money that rightfully belongs to them. As his Evita-like wife, Signe Hasso has a chance to show her capabilities, and she's excellent - charming on the surface, worried about her husband, and hard as nails underneath.

Hasso was a wonderful Swedish actress often relegated to B movies or to small roles in A films. Eventually she turned to theater and television. Here we see, had the roles been there for her, what a find she truly was.

It's always great to see old-timers Gilbert Roland and Ramon Novarro, the latter as Colonel Dragon, and the former as a revolutionary who wants Grant to kill Farrago on the operating table. Actually he's no better than Farrago, and Ferguson gets a bird's eye look at oppression politics.

A very good film; worth seeing for Grant, Ferrer and Hasso.

Cary Grant stars as a famous neurosurgeon who is vacationing in a South American country with his new bride. The pair are subject to a "friendly abduction" when the current president of that country, Raoul Farrago (Jose Ferrer), learns of his presence. You see, the president has a brain tumor, and due to the fact that his country is on the verge of civil war, he dares not travel to another country for the operation he needs to save his life.

Farrago is a tyrant who claims that he must be so because democracy would never work in his country. His people are illiterate children, he says, and wouldn't know what to do with freedom if they had it. However, being a national "father image" doesn't prevent the president from stealing everything in the country that isn't nailed down. The president's wife does a great job of emulating Evita Peron before much was really known about her. Then there is Gilbert Roland as the leader of the opposition. He wants to make his people free, as long as he gets to be the new dictator. Roland does a great job with this role. How far he has progressed here since his early days as an actor at the dawn of sound.

So the question is - does Grant owe a service to the dictator by saving his life with a delicate operation only so that patient can go on being a killer and a thief, or would the death of this tyrant better serve mankind? If you throw the safety of his wife into the balance - what decision does the doctor make?

Crisis represents yet another attempt by Cary Grant to break away from his light leading man image and do something with more drama. His last attempt was None But the Lonely Heart which got great critical notices, an Oscar nomination for him and died at the box office. The public just didn't want to see him in stuff like Crisis.

The film is one of a very few non-musical productions by Arthur Freed at MGM. And the original story was intended for Spencer Tracy who was to be a neurosurgeon traveling in Latin America with a 10 year old daughter. The powers that be decided a little romance was needed so Tracy was substituted by Grant and he was given a wife played by Paula Raymond instead of a daughter.

He's a neurosurgeon and when the powers that be discover him in their country he's brought to the presidential palace to operate on Peron like dictator Jose Ferrer. Then the rebels capture Paula Raymond and Grant's got a dilemma.

Signe Hasso who was cast in the role of the first lady bears more than a passing resemblance to Eva Peron does the best job in the film. Cast in Latino parts are such Hollywood Latinos as Raymond Novarro, Gilbert Roland, Antonio Moreno, and Pedro deCordoba. All perform well.

Crisis marked Richard Brooks's directorial debut and he wrote the script as well. Unfortunately the same thing happened here as did to None But the Lonely Heart. Great reviews and it lost money. Brooks was established as a director though.

Even someone who's been keeping track of old movies for many years can be forgiven if this one slipped under the radar. Surgeon Cary Grant and his wife are vacationing in a South- or Central-American paradise when they are abducted by government forces. Seems the country's dictator (Jose Ferrar) has a brain tumor but is afraid to leave the country due to revolutionary activity. Grant is pressured into performing the operation. Only problem is, the guerrillas have captured his wife, threatening to kill her if Ferrar survives the operation. But the letter informing him of this never reaches Grant.... Supporting cast includes Leon Ames, Ramon Navarro (Ben-Hur of the silent era) and Signe Hasso as Ferrar's wife, an Evita Peron clone. This is a tense and often intelligent drama (and slightly out of Grant's usual debonair range) that doesn't merit the obscurity it seems to be buried in.

Most IMDb critics claim that this is unlike any other Cary Grant role, but I think his performance is remarkably reminiscent of "Notorious." Agent Devlin was more romantic, to be sure, but Dr. Ferguson is also a cool, calm, rational, and duty-bound man in a political maelstrom: he's a surgeon, vacationing in a banana republic whose tumor-stricken dictator shanghais him. The result is a trenchant dramatic character, which Grant does very well, supported by Ramon Novarro and Gilbert Roland, who always add quality to a movie. And I'd single out two other performers:

The Spanish composer Vicente Gómez graces only one scene, in a café, but he plays a soulful guitar solo that I wanted much, much more of.

And then there's José Ferrer as the dictator. He almost steals every scene, especially when he watches Grant's amateur surgical team drill into a fake human skull, rehearsing for the surgery awaiting the dictator himself tomorrow. When the rehearsal is done, Ferrer is sweating visibly and fumbling with a cigarette. He makes it easy for you to project yourself into that makeshift O. R. with the student surgical team-- you with a brain tumor and a captive surgeon who makes no effort to hide his antipathy.

But Grant holds his own. "Tell them never to use that instrument on the brain again," he says to his translator. "It might suck a piece right out of the brain." Ferrer hears, of course, and through his sweat he asks, "How did it go?" Grant drops the stitched-up skull in a garbage pail and says, "Oh, it went quite well. But you died."