Movie Review: Separate Tables (1958)

Genre: Drama  

Director: Delbert Mann  

Starring: Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, Rita Hayworth, David Niven, Wendy Hiller, Rod Taylor, Gladys Cooper, Cathleen Nesbitt  
Running Time: 100 minutes  

Synopsis: The setting is the The Beauregard Hotel in Bournemouth, England. The residents include the gossipy Mrs. Railton-Bell (Gladys Cooper) and her obedient and dowdy daughter Sibyl (Deborah Kerr), who has a crush on the talkative Major Pollock (David Niven). The divorced John Malcolm (Burt Lancaster) drowns his sorrows at the local pub but promises to marry the hotel manager Pat Cooper (Wendy Hiller). Medical student Charles (Rod Taylor) is prevented from concentrating by feisty girlfriend Jean (Audrey Dalton). The guests' established rhythms are first disrupted by the arrival of John's ex-wife Anne (Rita Hayworth), a glamorous model, and then by a shocking scandal.

What Works Well: The adaptation of two stage plays by Terence Rattigan (who co-wrote the screenplay) deploys sharp writing to create a rich texture of turmoil churning beneath staid surroundings. Director Delbert Mann teases out a Britain in post-war transition, the older generation holding on to conservative ideals while the younger members frolic and test new boundaries. David Niven (as Pollock encounters the limits of deceit) and Deborah Kerr (as Sybil finally cracks her shell) shine brightest in a stellar cast that allows mannerisms, etiquette, and social norms to collide with secrets, scandals, emotional releases, and new beginnings.

What Does Not Work As Well: The production is strictly stage-bound, and unsurprisingly a few scenes slip into theatrical melodrama. While the emotional untidyness is welcome, a few character decisions in the final act demonstrate genuinely suspect judgement.

Key Quote:

John Malcolm: You know something, Ann? No one I know of lies with such sincerity.

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Movie Review: Pal Joey (1957)

Genre: Musical Romance  

Director: George Sidney  

Starring: Frank Sinatra, Rita Hayworth, Kim Novak  

Running Time: 109 minutes  

Synopsis: Nightclub singer and crass womanizer Joey Evans (Frank Sinatra) has been thrown out of every joint he's ever worked at. He arrives in San Francisco, weasels his way into performing at a club, and is soon lusting after innocent chorus girl Linda English (Kim Novak). Joey has ambitions to open his own club, and romances rich widow (and former stripper) Vera Prentice-Simpson (Rita Hayworth) into funding his project. But trouble arises when Vera realizes Joey may really be in love with Linda.

What Works Well: The loose adaptation of a 1940 Broadway musical (based on a John O'Hara novel) is drenched in vivid nightclub ambience where performances are tacky and desperation hangs in the air. The sturdy love triangle offers sharp edges derived from character fundamentals, while in the central role a jaunty Frank Sinatra navigates the complex arc of a manipulative scoundrel confronting a new set of values. Some of the songs are imported from other musicals, and the better highlights include The Lady Is A Tramp, Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered, and There's A Small Hotel.

What Does Not Work As Well: The plot is wafer thin, and Joey's Neanderthalic attitude towards women creates a distasteful character for most of the running time. The singing voices of Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak are dubbed, and Novak never finds her footing as a naive chorus girl from a rural background. Beyond the three leads, there are no notable secondary characters to animate the surroundings.

Key Quote:

Joey (to Vera): Nobody owns Joey, but Joey.

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Movie Review: Only Angels Have Wings (1939)

A drama and romance, Only Angels Have Wings explores the psyche of men intent on conquering the dual risks of gravity and jagged terrain.

The setting is the remote port city of Barranca, in South America at the base of the Andes. Geoff Carter (Cary Grant) runs a ramshackle airline flying mail, supplies and rescue missions through mountain passes. The elderly Dutchy (Sig Ruman) owns the airline but is close to bankruptcy. Kid Dabb (Thomas Mitchell) is Geoff's loyal second-in-command and one of the pilots. 

Entertainer Bonnie Lee (Jean Arthur) arrives in Barranca and is attracted to Geoff, although he is clear about never wanting to be constrained by a woman. Bonnie witnesses one of the pilots crashing in heavy fog, and is shocked at Geoff's casual attitude towards tragedy. Nevertheless, she decides to hang around.

An experienced pilot calling himself MacPherson (Richard Barthelmess) arrives with his wife Judy (Rita Hayworth), seeking a job. Judy has a romantic history with Carter, and MacPherson carries a suspect reputation due to an incident involving Kid's brother. Carter gives him a chance and MacPherson proves his flying skills. With financial pressure increasing to fly more missions, Carter and his men accept higher risks.

It takes a special breed of men to settle at the limits of civilization and fly suspect equipment through soaring mountains, and the women attracted to such men are also made of stern stuff. In Only Angels Have Wings, director Howard Hawks and screenwriter Jules Furthman create an unforgettably scrappy edge-of-the-world ambience enlivened by compelling characters dancing with death. Personal and financial desperation mix with brazen courage and adrenaline, and several memorable flying sequences celebrate the early days of commercial cargo aviation.

The film notably refuses to conform to any genre. Starting with the foundation of a frontier western mentality (all the pilots wear guns), Hawks crafts a unique character-centred drama with one-sided romantic entanglements, a cryptic sense of humour, a couple of organic musical numbers, breathtaking aviation scenes and no shortage of tragedy, injury and interpersonal tension. 

The unifying theme is a sense of close-knit family nourished by camaraderie forged by like-minded adventurous but interchangeable men. While they each have limits, none have the patience or inclination to grieve. The meagre belongings of the deceased are unceremoniously shared, and after a few songs are belted out focus quickly shifts to finding a replacement.

Cary Grant's Carter stands tall as a risk-taking leader, quick to bark out orders and push back on emotions. Full of prickly self-confidence, he leads by example and never hesitates to speak his mind to the men and women in his life. Nor does he care should anyone pack up and leave because of his forthright words - in fact, he frequently encourages them to do so, Barranca being no place for unsure personalities.

He is surrounded by colourful characters with their own stories. The doddering Dutchy is buckling under financial pressure and a life lived watching others die, while Carter's sidekick Kid is approaching his best-before flying date and now has to confront the man responsible for his brother's demise. And Richard Barthelmess as MacPherson emerges with the most interesting side-quest as a pilot quietly gritting his teeth to seek redemption in perilous skies.

Only Angels Have Wings bluntly advocates for women to accept men as they are or leave them alone. With Jean Arthur at her inquisitive best, Bonnie has to decide if loving Carter is worth daily heartstopping drama, while Rita Hayworth's Judy, having bounced from Carter to MacPherson, is clearly attracted to the thrill, although she may not admit it. Flying with the angels is treacherous, but also euphoric.

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Movie Review: Blood And Sand (1941)

A bullfighting drama, Blood And Sand is a melodramatic but nevertheless absorbing cautionary tale about fame's fickleness.

In Seville, young and confident Juan Gallardo comes from a humble family and dreams of following in his father's footsteps and becoming a great matador. His still-grieving mother Señora Angustias (Nazimova) worries her son will one day die in the ring, like his father. Juan travels to Madrid with a group of friends to seek his fortune. Ten years later, Juan (Tyrone Power) returns to Seville as an up-and-coming but still raw matador, and influential bullfighting critic Curro (Laird Cregar) remains sceptical about his talent.

But Juan marries his childhood sweetheart Carmen Espinosa (Linda Darnell) and within a couple of years becomes the best and most celebrated bullfighter in the country. With the world at his feet, Juan is entranced by the alluring beauty of the wealthy and spoiled Doña Sol des Muire (Rita Hayworth). He starts a steamy affair with the seductress and loses his edge, placing at risk all he has worked for, and soon his supremacy in the ring is challenged by his friend Manolo (Anthony Quinn).

Based on the book by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, Blood And Sand presents the sport as a futile celebrity machine designed to distract young men away from their more cerebral potential. The overriding theme is the sport's bloodthirsty and uncaring attitude, with the matadors lured in by dreams of riches, abandoning their education to pursue glory, exploited at the top and then discarded either to a gored death or poverty when their skills decline. The heartless core of building up and spitting out heroes applies to many sports, but here is sharpened by the mesmerizing pull of dancing with arena death every weekend.

The rise and fall of Juan is paralleled by the women in his life. Carmen's true purity propels him to his greatest achievements while Doña's adulteration paves a gilded pathway to ruin. Doña embodies in one person the allure and spoils of reaching the very top, as well as the capricious nature of celebrity. She will ensnare the next top matador as her lover when the time comes, and won't give a second thought about the has-been.

Tyrone Power throws himself fearlessly into the role of Juan, the actor finding the single-minded passion needed to seek fame jousting with angry bulls. Doña is Rita Hayworth's breakout role, although her undisguised and ravishing huntress mannerisms operate within a narrow range.

For a movie about bullfighting there is surprisingly little in-arena action. Director Rouben Mamoulian, working from a Jo Swerling script, builds up to one central showpiece event towards the middle of the film, but otherwise focuses on characters and allows all the emotions to pour out unconstrained by any attempts at nuance. With animated settings and earthy tones, Juan's journey is vivid, colourful and committed, Blood And Sand spelling out its messages in bold letters against the bloodied and shifting stadium soil.

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Movie Review: Circus World (1964)

A dull and bloated drama, Circus World (also known as The Magnificent Showman) is a seemingly endless visit to the big tent, where the human interaction is lifeless and the characters uniformly uninteresting.

It's early in the 1900s, and Matt Masters (John Wayne) and his sidekick Cap Carson (Lloyd Nolan) run a circus operation. Steve McCabe (John Smith) is one of the handsome stars of the show, while young Toni (Claudia Cardinale) has a bit-part. Toni is being raised by Matt after her father, the famous aerial acrobat Alfredo Alberto, died while performing and her mother Lili (Rita Hayworth) ran off. Matt was in love with Lili at the time and never emotionally moved on from the great love of his life.

Matt decides to take the circus on a tour of Europe, potentially because he is still looking for Lili. Disaster strikes at the first stop in Barcelona, when the transport ship capsizes and all the circus equipment is lost. Matt, Cap, Steve and Toni have to start anew, and they accept work with a rival touring circus company with Matt maintaining his search for Lili while saving money to restart his own show. He connects with Toni's uncle Aldo Alfredo (Richard Conte), who may still blame Matt for his brother's death. Finally Matt and Lili do meet, with Lili living a destitute and nomadic life in Europe. Matt gives her the chance to restart her career, but both of them are unsure how to reintroduce Toni to her long-missing mother.

Directed by Henry Hathaway and co-written by Ben Hecht, Circus World is an ambitious but troubled Samuel Bronston production. Originally slated to be directed by Frank Capra, the film attempts to safeguard the John Wayne western persona within an entirely different milieu. It just does not work. Wayne struts around issuing orders and wanting badly for the circus to represent the wild west, but all around him the script is littered with cringe-inducing moments, witless drama, laughable dialogue and inconceivable character motivations.

The problems are too many to overcome. Cardinale was 26 years old at the time of filming, and although she is game, she just can't pretend to be the teenager demanded by the script. The slow-burning, decades-spanning love that is supposed to simmer between Matt and Lili takes forever to materialize on the screen. Lili makes her appearance halfway through the 135 minutes of running time, and is then reduced to a few hesitant scenes. Hayworth was reportedly a horror to work with on the set, potentially suffering from both alcoholism and early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, and she is neither convincing as a love interest nor as a trapeze artist making a comeback.

John Smith as Steve McCabe is simply bland, and the attempts to spark a romance between McCabe and Toni falter. Worst of all, some of the film's key moments are simply flubbed: the causes of the incredibly sudden ship disaster are never even discussed, and the evil intent supposedly residing within Aldo Alfredo, who may have been behind scary threats against Toni as well as a damaging fire, is left completely unresolved.

Hathaway at least makes the film look gorgeous. Filmed in something called Super Technirama 70 (but promoted as Cinerama), Circus World is visually rich and saturated in colours, with an admirable level of kinetic energy sweeping across the screen, particularly in the numerous circus show segments. And Hathaway finally finds a pulse in the late catastrophic fire scene that injects some much needed momentum. But Circus World is more circus show than real world, and it's ultimately down to the big animals and silly clowns to provide desperate relief from the turgid drama.

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Movie Review: You Were Never Lovelier (1942)

A romantic comedy musical with screwball elements, You Were Never Lovelier strikes the perfect balance between humour, romance and elegant musical numbers.

Famous American dancer Bob Davis (Fred Astaire) is in Buenos Aires, where he proceeds to lose all his money on his horse racing gambling addiction. Desperate for a job, he approaches gruff tycoon and hotel owner Eduardo Acuña (Adolphe Menjou), seeking a dancing gig at the hotel's swanky restaurant. Acuña, the father of four grown daughters, believes that Davis is a useless opportunist and wants nothing to do with him. Acuña also has problems of his own. With his eldest daughter now married, his second daughter Maria (Rita Hayworth) is not passionate about any man, and is therefore holding up the marriage prospects of daughters three and four.

Acuña concocts a harebrained plot to manufacture a secret admirer for Maria, to get her romantic juices flowing. He starts sending her unsigned love notes and orchids on a daily basis. The plan initially works, but through a series of misunderstandings, Maria arrives at the conclusion that Davis is her secret lover, and passion ignites between them much to Acuña's horror.

Directed by William A. Seiter with music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Johnny Mercer, You Were Never Lovelier is the second and final screen teaming of Astaire and Hayworth. This is a breezy, character-rich comedy with three fine central performances. Astaire is at his elegant best, Hayworth looks ravishing and simply glows in a series of stunning gowns, and Menjou has a substantial supporting role as the meddlesome patriarch. The dialogue is witty, the pace is brisk, and there is plenty going on in every scene. Hayworth's voice is unnecessarily dubbed (by Nan Wynn) and not enough is made of the supposed Buenos Aires setting and Argentinian culture, but You Were Never Lovelier gets everything else right.

Astaire would later name Hayworth his favourite dance partner, while she considered her two collaborations with Astaire as the pinnacle of her career. It's easy to see why. There is an effortless chemistry between the two that simply materializes as soon as they share the screen, a spark of romance and respect that Astaire rarely generated with other leading ladies. Hayworth does not try to match Astaire in their dances; she does her own thing to complement him, and does it with undisguised happiness, resulting in a cheerfully comfortable pairing. The two highlight dance scenes are simply perfect, the classic and elegant I'm Old Fashioned signalling the start of the romance, and the more exuberant The Shorty George confirming just how compatible Davis and Maria are.

The film works well precisely because of the measured approach to the musical interludes. The songs and dances are there to punctuate the story's key moments, and otherwise do not get in the way or slow down the madcap story. Seiter and his editors deliver the package at an economical 97 minutes, add no padding, and if anything, leave the audience wanting more. In other words, the perfect approach to lighthearted entertainment.

You Were Never Lovelier is rounded out with secondary characters who do much to liven up the film. The script (co-written by Delmer Daves) takes the time to create screwball-like fun involving Acuña's family and acquaintances getting in each other's way and injecting texture and humour into the manic proceedings. Assistant Fernando (Gus Schilling), wife Delfina (Barbara Brown), Maria's godmother also called Maria (Isobel Elsom) and her husband Juan (Douglas Leavitt) and the two youngest daughters all do their part to generate and maintain momentum. Band leader Xavier Cugat also enjoys an extended role and adds to the musical flavour.

You Were Never Lovelier is a gem of a musical, a rare example of all the genre elements coming together in just the right doses.

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The Movies Of Rita Hayworth

All movies starring Rita Hayworth and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Only Angels Have Wings (1939)

Blood And Sand (1941)

You Were Never Lovelier (1942)

Cover Girl (1944)

Gilda (1946)

The Lady From Shanghai (1947)

Affair In Trinidad (1952)

Pal Joey (1957)

Separate Tables (1958)

Circus World (1964)

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Movie Review: Gilda (1946)

A classic film noir, Gilda smolders in the Buenos Aires heat as a small time gambler, his ex-flame and an illegal casino baron get embroiled in a personal duel against the backdrop of a dangerous cartel emerging from the post-war shadows.

American Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) washes up in Buenos Aires penniless but still adept at cheating his way to winning at any gambling opportunity. He is spotted by Ballin Mundson (George Macready), the smooth but ruthless operator of a lavish underworld casino, where the elite come to play. Ballin hires Johnny as his business manager and second in command, and the two men develop a strong friendship. But the trust between them starts to evaporate when Ballin returns from a trip suddenly married to the beautiful Gilda (Rita Hayworth).

Although they both initially deny it, it becomes obvious that Johnny and Gilda are former lovers who broke up on bad terms. Gilda, perhaps a mistress of the oldest profession, is a wild spirit who cannot be contained by Ballin, and she starts running around with any available man, primarily to make Johnny jealous. Ballin becomes preoccupied when his involvement with an illegal, Nazi-linked tungsten cartel starts to catch up with him. He asks Johnny to keep an eye on Gilda and make sure she stays safe, but the flame of passion between Johnny and Gilda is about to be reignited.

Directed by Charles Vidor, Gilda is a careening adventure into the sordid world of lovers' revenge, packed into the tight quarters of shady gambling and global intrigue. It's a breathless exercise in smooth narcissism, every man for himself, one woman on a twisted vendetta, all in a foreign location where all the normal rules are suspended. Photographed by Rudolph Maté in smoky black and white, almost every scene is a masterpiece of shadows, angles and lighting that hides the sinners in the corners.

Gilda is populated by slippery secondary characters who animate Ballin's casino, oozing hidden agendas from every pore and turning the gambling den into the favourite hangout for the crooks, the cops, and the crocked. Maurice Obregon (Joseph Calleia) doesn't drink and doesn't gamble, he is there as a government agent charged with keeping an eye on the place and untangling the tungsten cartel's secrets. The durable Uncle Pio (Steven Geray) looks after the bathrooms, and is a lot more astute than he looks.

And then there is the twisted-looking old man who regularly walks in, bets on "2 black" at the roulette wheel, and walks away with a wad of cash, all part of the effort to keep the peace. And finally there are the two "Germans" who show up to try and reclaim control of the cartel away from Ballin, now that the world war is over and all.

It's all reminiscent of Rick's Cafe Americain, of course, but the Gilda screenplay (by Jo Eisinger and Marion Parsonnet) is not concerned with great struggles between good and evil. At Ballin's casino it's all about personal greed, lust, jealousy and betrayal, a world full of selfish Ricks who are looking out for their personal gain and pleasure.

A luminous Rita Hayworth has never been in a better film, and she creates in Gilda a seductress, a lover and a victim all rolled into one amazing woman who can neither be resisted nor controlled. Liberated by Gilda's unrestrained sexuality deployed in a frontal assault to reclaim her one shot at true love, Hayworth gets to perform two sizzling dance numbers (with singing dubbed by Anita Ellis). Put The Blame On Mame is an inferred striptease meant to make the walls sweat, while Amado Mio is a more subdued but still sinewy number. Glenn Ford and George Macready are both excellent as the two men in her life, but Vidor ensures that whenever Hayworth is on the screen, nothing else matters.

Gilda proves to be the catalyst for both Johnny and Ballin. Both men are enjoying financial riches until she walks into their lives, and by the time the drama has played out, it is clear that no life stays on the same trajectory once Gilda makes an appearance. An exceptional force of nature and an alluring partner for the man who tames her heart, Gilda is a game changer.

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Movie Review: The Lady From Shanghai (1947)

A ponderous film noir, The Lady From Shanghai enjoys some brilliant directorial touches from Orson Welles, but is otherwise saddled with dingy characters and blurry motivations.

In New York City, Michael O'Hara (Welles), a tough but down on his luck and unemployed Irish sailor, rescues the beautiful Elsa Bannister (Rita Hayworth) from some Central Park hoodlums. Elsa and her lawyer husband Arthur (Everett Sloane), who walks on crutches, hire Michael as a seaman on board their yacht for a journey to San Francisco via the Panama Canal. Joining the trip is George Grisby, Arthur's business partner and also a lawyer.

As the journey progresses, the earthy Michael finds the Bannisters and Grisby distasteful and conceited. Nevertheless, Michael and Elsa are soon attracted to each other. But the trip takes a turn towards the bizarre when Grisby asks Michael to help fake his death for an insurance windfall, in return for $5,000. With his lust for Elsa heating up, Michael is unsure who to trust and what his next move should be, especially with private investigator Sidney Broome (Ted de Corsia) nosing around the affairs of the Bannisters.

A rushed production delivered by Welles to Columbia Pictures as part of a financial commitment, The Lady From Shanghai stutters its way through the fog of a poorly defined plot. Despite containing plenty to admire, the film is fundamentally lacking a gravitational focus. Elsa, Arthur and Grisby all seem to be plotting something, but their plans remain opaque for far too long, leaving a group of sordid people behaving badly towards each other and dragging the dim Michael into their wreckage.

Ultimately too much of the over-convoluted plot is explained in a rush through off-screen narration rather than on-screen events, resulting in style asserting too much dominance over substance. Most of the film is occupied with hushed and repetitive conspiratorial conversations overlayed with philosophizing about life, love and death, but coming from the mouth of unlikable characters oozing with unexplained evil intent, the resonance is thin. At the film's centre the character of Michael is just too gullible and unsympathetic, and does not offer anything other than a reckless rush into a criminal swamp and an ill-conceived infatuation with an unavailable woman.

The Lady From Shanghai does boast one of Rita Hayworth's most attractive performances. Welles transforms his wife into a short-haired blonde ready to deal in plenty of lust and even more lies, and Hayworth responds with a buzz of understated voltage, allowing Elsa to smoulder with frustration and intent, often in fetching swimwear onboard the Bannister's yacht. Everett Sloane as Bannister and Glenn Anders as Grisby benefit from Welles' close-ups and shadows, filling the screen with a nasty partners' feud heading towards a showdown.

And it's ultimately Welles' trademark camerawork and mastery of shadows that gives the movie its appeal. Most of the scenes that matter in The Lady From Shanghai happen at night, as darkness envelops Michael's world, and Welles plays with light, fire and crisp contrasts. The film ends with a famous gunfight staged in a disorienting funhall of mirrors, Welles adding infinite repetitive reflectivity to his repertoire. Michael O'Hara was not bright enough to steer clear of his shady new acquaintances, and his penance is to see them in a nightmare of multiples, guns blazing.

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Movie Review: Cover Girl (1944)

A bouncy and colourful musical with an engaging plot and plenty of character, Cover Girl suffers from relatively lacklustre musical numbers but excels at weaving the song and dance elements into its narrative.

Rusty Parker (Rita Hayworth) is a showgirl at a low-key Brooklyn show lounge owned and operated by boyfriend Danny McGuire (Gene Kelly) and his sidekick Genius (Phil Silvers). Rusty dreams of a big break, and enters a competition to be designated the fresh new face by a celebrity magazine. She eventually catches the eye of the magazine's elderly publisher John Coudair (Otto Kruger), and he places her on the cover. Coudair realizes that in his youth he dated and fell in love with Rusty's grandmother Maribelle (also Hayworth).

Rusty's new found celebrity bring plenty of business to McGuire's, and soon she attracts the attention of Broadway producer Noel Wheaton (Lee Bowman), who wants to launch her career on the big stage and also marry her. Rusty has to decide whether to leave McGuire behind, as she finds her life beginning to parallel her grandmother's.

Unlike many musicals of the era, Cover Girl works on its sharply written story and conjures up enough plot elements and doses of humour to maintain interest apart from the performance interludes. The introduction of Mirabelle's adventure in flashback is a clever touch, allowing director Charles Vidor to play with a history repeating itself theme.

The result is a film where the musical sequences flow with the narrative rather than interrupting it. But while both Hayworth and Kelly pour their energy into their routines, they rarely find a genuine spark. The show numbers are disappointingly bland and forgettable, the one exception being Kelly (in only his fourth film) cleverly dancing with himself through the deserted night streets.

Hayworth never looks less than stunning but cannot translate her visual impact to any genuine show-stoppers. It does not help that McGuire's is supposed to be a second-rate joint, giving licence for some of the stage antics to be intentionally average.

Phil Silvers brightens up his surroundings with a witty performance as Genius (an ironic nickname), the sometimes useful spare tire in the romance between Danny and Rusty. Otto Kruger gives depth to the role of John Coudair, a man whose memories and wisdom become ever more important at Rusty reaches the crossroads.

Cover Girl may not be in the absolute top tier of musicals, but it does land on the front page.

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Movie Review: Affair In Trinidad (1952)

An average conspiracy thriller, Affair In Trinidad reunites Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford from Gilda (1946), but a sophomoric "evil lurks here" plot limits the film's effectiveness.

In the sultry Caribbean British colony outpost of Trinidad, fledgling American artist Neil Emery is found dead in a small boat. It is left to local Inspector Smythe (Torin Thatcher) and American diplomat Anderson (Howard Wendell) to break the news to Neil's wife Chris (Hayworth), a nightclub performer. There are indications that Neil may have committed suicide, but Smythe suspects that mysterious local tycoon Max Fabian (Alexander Scourby) had something to do with the death. Smythe recruits Chris to secretly infiltrate Max's circle and investigate, a task made easier by Max's infatuation with Chris.

Neil's brother Steve (Ford) arrives in Trinidad in response to a letter that Neil wrote before his death, and is shocked to find his brother dead and his sister-in-law already sidling up to Max. Although Steve and Chris are attracted to each other, she has to keep her distance in order to seduce Max and poke around his mansion for clues of wrong-doing. With Steve uncovering his own evidence that Max is up to no good, Chris stumbles onto a dangerous international plot being orchestrated by Max, and involving a ragged group of traitors.

Affair In Trinidad has some noirish elements, but it is more earnest than cynical. Max and his plotters come across as a bunch of Nazi outcasts forming an amateur science club in his garden shed, and Steve steams through the movie with a boiling temper unbefitting of a thoughtful saviour. The movie is more of a Hayworth comeback role, and she is the central focus not as a femme fatale but rather a widow and victim clumsily thrust into a conspiratorial world. Her two musical numbers are a mish mash of the seductive and the ungainly, Hayworth stomping around rather than gliding on the dance floor, her moves more aggressive than graceful.

Director Vincent Sherman does conjure up a good mood. The nightclub and the parties at Max's mansion evoke a carefree yet tense island lifestyle where the rich and the riffraff all have something to hide and the heat helps to elevate the levels of agitation. The love quadrangle, with Chris struggling with feelings towards the hot-headed Steve, the smooth-tongued Max, and the deceased Neil, creates a flow of bubbling emotions.

The three central performances are also steady. There is no faulting Hayworth's commitment in the central role, her presence magnetic with shades of conflict, although despite many fetching gowns she never fully catches fire. Ford and Scourby play opposite characters and both deliver, Ford full of pent-up anger as Steve and Scourby full of himself as Max.

With Max's rag tag villains more bumbling than menacing, ultimately the rather inane plot undermines any momentum that Affair In Trinidad may have generated. The film ends in a rush and with an exceptional number of loose ends flailing in the Caribbean wind, waiting to be picked up by more polished movies.

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