Macao

It's a routine but atmospheric potboiler, and worth a watch if not seen before. I've seen it a dozen times, but I'm a sucker for this kind of hard boiled dark nonsense. "Shanghai Express" was much better in all departments from Sternberg in the Golden Age, darker gloomier and more menacing, and is the yardstick I judge his other work from. Co-directed by Nicholas Ray (or was it finished?) "Macao" stands out for me from the real routine Hollywood films of the period, the ones that were meant to make a lot of money and did.

Brad Dexter's finest film role as the whispering crook, Mitchum sparkles (or rather, snoozes his way through) in his best comedic vein, Russell and Grahame are perfectly decorative, however it's a pity Bendix couldn't have stuck around to the end. Mitchum boarded Macao without a passport and was the only one not searched at Customs - and the slender thread the whole story hangs by is also perpetrated by Thomas Gomez there too.

If you, like me liked "The big steal" or "His kind of woman" you're sure to like this.

Macao is a paradise to outlaws since there is no extradition from this country. The former soldier Nick Cochran (Robert Mitchum) that had a problem with the New York police; the cynical and experienced singer Julie Benson (Jane Russell) and the salesman Lawrence C. Trumble (William Bendix) travel by ship and arrive at the port of Macao. Julie pickpockets Nick 's wallet and he loses his money and documents.

On the arrival, the corrupt Police Lieutenant Sebastian (Thomas Gomez) has the information that an undercover detective from New York is on board of the vessel and he believes that he is Nick Cochran. He discloses the information to the crime lord Vincent Halloran (Brad Dexter) that owns a casino and Halloran believes that Nick has the intention of taking him into international waters so that he can be arrested. Halloran hires Julie and tries to bribe Nick to leave Macao, but Nick and Julie feel attracted to each other and Nick has no intention to travel to Hong-Kong. When Trumble offers a deal to Nick with a diamond necklace, Nick shows a diamond from the necklace to Halloran and he concludes that Nick is really an undercover cop and sends his henchman to capture him. Who might be Trumble?

"Macao" is an entertaining adventure with a non-original story. The screenplay is weak, with a rushed conclusion, and the characters are poorly developed. The greatest attractions are the always great Robert Mitchum and the sultry Jane Russell that makes it worthwhile watching. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Macao"

Josef von Sternberg began Macao (and copped the directorial credit), but Nicholas Ray finished it. Nonetheless, it abounds with Sternberg's branded flounces and fetishes. As in Shanghai Express and The Shanghai Gesture, he trowels on the Orientalism in thick impasto (Sternberg could have made the best Charlie Chan movie of them all).

A nighttime chase through the Macao docks opens the movie (to be rhymed near its conclusion): A white-suited European is pursued by knife-throwing Chinese thugs; he falls in the water when one blade finds its mark. A badge filched from him pocket shows him to be a police detective.

Into this world of Asian intrigue sails a boat from Hong Kong, just 35 miles up the coast. On it is the motley crew of salesman William Bendix, drifter Robert Mitchum and mysterious woman Jane Russell, who lifts Mitchum's wallet. Sans passport, Mitchum comes to the attention of the Macao police chief (Thomas Gomez), who reports the suspicious stranger to gambling kingpin Brad Dexter. Dexter assumes Mitchum is a cop he knows to be on his way to extradite him back to Hong Kong....

It's a playfully plotted adventure story. Russell gets a gig singing at Dexter's club in eye-popping gowns which actually aren't any more provocative than the black-and-white daytime outfits she traipses around in, wielding a parasol. She fares better than Gloria Grahame, as Dexter's moll, looking washed out and largely wasted (though she puts her distinctive spin on a couple of lines). Mitchum by this time has done this role – the lippy but laconic reluctant hero – so often he could do it in his sleep, which, given his hooded eyes, may be the truth of the matter.

Macao is an utterly shallow film done with energy and style. The plotting remains perfunctory, but the play of shadows throughout remains transfixing – especially in the set-piece near the end, again on the dark waterfront, with ropes and nets casting their creepy spell. And the movie provides Russell with one of her few opportunities to flaunt her real, if narrow, talents: in addition to the statuesque figure that caught Howard Hughes' eye, she had spunk and sass. That's what Sternberg saw, and he fell for it. We do, too.

A fast-moving tale of foreign intrigue set in the port of Macao, on the south coast of China, across the Pearl River Delta from Hong Kong. The convoluted plot involves three newcomers to the region, Robert Mitchum's ex-serviceman on the run out east on account of some domestic trouble back in New York, Jane Russell as a similarly nomadic nightclub singer, looking for a fresh start after a series of failed love affairs and William Bendix as an enthusiastic travelling salesman. However their arrival off the boat is being watched by the local chief of police, who is in the pocket of American crime-boss Brad Dexter who suspects that Mitchum is an undercover cop out to lure him beyond the three mile zone protecting him in Macao.

Dexter has a girlfriend, played by Gloria Grahame, who becomes jealous of Russell after he employs Russell as a singer, but also so that he can keep tabs on Mitchum. The plot thickens as Mitchum and Russell fall for each other, the real cop is revealed and a ploy involving stolen jewellery is instigated to bring Dexter to Hong Kong where he can finally be arrested. After an exciting foot-chase around the dark, deserted docks involving Mitchum and a couple of Dexter's knife-wielding Chinese henchmen, the denouement takes place on Dexter's boat climaxing in a roughhouse fist-fight between Dexter and Mitchum and a reconciliation between Mitchum and Russell which gives Mitchum a cheeky, risqué closing line before the end titles.

The film was a return to Hollywood film-making by Dietrich's celebrated German director of the 30's, Josef Von Sternberg, after a gap of several years and his stylised technique of lighting is evident especially in the night time scenes, although Nicholas Ray, then married to Grahame, was reportedly called in to finish the shoot after Von Sternberg was fired from the production.

The film packs a lot of plot into its eighty minute running time and still finds time to allow Russell to sing a few numbers, notably "You Kill Me" (great name for a torch song) and "One For My Baby" which Sinatra would later make his own. Mitchum and Russell bring their own respective brands of vulnerable machismo and sultry sassiness to their parts as well as the heat in their scenes together. Grahame however seems disinterested in her part but Bendix and Dexter are more convincing as the real protagonists way out east.

An enjoyably entertaining Oriental adventure, what it lacks in budget, it makes up for in style and the charisma of its two undeniably magnetic leads.

Heh! Masterpiece it ain't, but it's got Mitch and Jane and in my book that's a plenty. Josef Von Sternberg was no stranger creating mysterious dreamscapes of his own making, Shanghai Express and Morocco comes to mind first and in this movie it also shows very much. Fishing nets, artfully bobbing sampans, black cats, exotic bit parts and beautiful Chinese "high-low" gamblers in slit skirts. Ahh... mysterious east it is. Unfortunately sum is not as high as parts would suggest and so this particular film leaves you wanting. Mitchum is in his usual mysterious tough guy mode and like a man said nobody does it better, Russell is little bland in the movie but very pleasing to the eye. Bendix is in fine form and it's a shame he doesn't have more screen time and Grahame is completely written down. Shameful thing it is when gals best scene is when she is blowing to the dice. Macao is not a bad movie in any way, but with better script it could have been so much more. If you want to check worthier Mitch & Jane collaboration take a look at His Kind of Woman, that film really rocks! Missed opportunity!