Lucky Nick Cain

The plot creaked and were I that bothered I might watch this film again (I've just seen it on YouTube) to see if I missed something.

I'm unclear why the gang went to so much trouble to set Nick Cain up with the body of the agent - why not just dump it in the sea or out in the country? And it was remarkable how townspeople identified Nick and Kay just from their names on a Wanted poster - and how on a couple of occasions someone conveniently turned up out of the blue.

The settings were nice enough, and Hugh French made an impression on me as the hotel manager, reminding me of David Niven - in fact he was even more suave, if that's possible. I'm surprised he didn't have a bigger film career.

American gambler Nick Cain arrives at the town of San Paola, and befriends shoe-shine boy Toni. He discovers he has been framed for the murder of an American Treasury agent.

He escapes with Kay Wonderly to an abandoned village, leaving her to hide out. Cain gets help from Massine, whom he does not trust. He uncovers an international counterfeiting ring, members of which are responsible for the murder.

Lucky Nick Cain is a fast-paced European noir-adventure which stars ole stone face George Raft, and in a standard plot he's framed for murder of a U. S treasured agent. What makes this thriller of interest is the visuals, which are submerged in lush noir images that augment the nocturnal claustrophobia of narrow, hillside European streets through jagged camera angles; plus there are several imaginative sequences, including Nick's drug-induced dream of a floating telephone and Kay's cacophonous nightmare of wolves and owls circling the ruins. Quite a creepy scene.

Definitely kept my attention with Raft and Gray getting drugged, then escape to the ruins, Raft returns to the town to investigate - the plot is boiling and I found it quite fun and not at all dull. The locales and atmosphere help, too. The mystery is slowly unraveled and doesn't let the cat out of the bag too soon. There are some odd elements like the kidnapping by florist, a dungeon holding female prisoners, a bar full of aggressive prostitutes. Nice action finale in the dungeon with a spiral staircase.

James Hadley Chase was a British writer who surrounded himself with American maps, reference books and dictionaries of popular slang before he sat down to write American style pulp fiction. With titles like "You Find Him, I'll Fix Him", "You're Lonely When You're Dead" and "Lady, Here's Your Wreath" and always with lurid covers, he managed to fool most of the paperback buying public into thinking he was a Yank!!! But with expressions like "jolly good" and "let's go to the cinema" some readers may have been scratching their heads. By 1950 George Raft had lost a lot of his popularity because of a series of less than prestigious films. Movies like this one didn't help, although it probably looked good on the drawing board.

It started off great - professional gambler "Lucky" Nick Cain (Raft) has the red carpet rolled out for him when he visits Sao Paolo - and he's suspicious!!! When he sits down to play baccarat his notoriety brings patrons to his table, including Kay (Coleen Gray) who quickly finds herself in debt to the casino. As a way of repaying them, they suggest Kay be "nice" to Nick in order to keep him at the casino. Back at his apartment, Nick is drugged and awakes to find himself accused of murdering a U.S. Treasury Agent (who had desperately tried to see him earlier in the evening). So begins a cat and mouse adventure involving counterfeit plates from the Third Reich. Colour would have enhanced the beautiful Italian countryside but considering the action was mostly set in the early evening and at night, there was not a lot to see. All in all a very dreary, run of the mill movie.

One actress I thought I might see more of was Greta Gynt, probably Britain's first sex symbol (even though she was Norwegian), but unfortunately she had one scene which took place in a darkened room!! George Raft bought class and professionalism to a role he could have performed in his sleep. Coleen Gray was always good - she is remembered as the carnival girl in "Nightmare Alley" and Sterling Hayden's decent girlfriend in "The Killing". Peter Bull had a small scene as Hans. He was usually the villain and was Britain's answer to Sidney Greenstreet. The brightest scene is at the beginning of the movie and one that made the movie look more promising than it really was. It involved Enzo Staiola, the little boy from "The Bicycle Thieves" - he played Toni, a little street urchin and someone who proves invaluable to Nick during the movie.

James Hadley Chase,among other writers, was well renowned for his ability to capture the readers attention from the beginning to end in all of his crime-thriller novels. That is where the difficulty sets in, can the director and crew capture the same in the movie? The story starts off with the arrival of an American gambler (Nick-George Raft) at a Mediterranean town of San Paola. Soon he gets acquainted with Kay (Coleen Gray) and finds himself framed for a murder, forcing him to go on the run with her. So far so good yet this is the turning point of the movie. Instead of going the edge of your seat 'why and who?' it turned into mediocrity. Overall, had the potential to be a great movie and could have rivaled movies like The Fugitive (1993) had a bit more suspense/tension been pumped into the screenplay and other movie making aspects.

There are three draw cards to this movie: Coleen Gray is one. She's so relaxed and natural, while ageing George Raft is stiff and dull. Two: the Riviera/Italian locations are easy on the eye. Three: it's good to see Enzo Staiola (from The Bicycle Thieves) in a supporting role as a shoeshine boy. Otherwise it's another lacklustre melo/thriller, with no-one really trying hard enough to breath life or thrills into it. There's even a sequence where Mr Raft is given a chance to perform the tango (for which he had been famous a couple of decades previously), but none of the camera angles give a look at his moves; we have to imagine how graceful he is (or was) from the inadequate mid-shots. It seems George was a bit past it. British movies would often attempt a boost to international sales by importing an old Hollywood star. Usually it didn't work. The young Hollywood star works for me, and the even younger Italian neo-realist star, but George is walking through this one.