Highly Entertaining Seriocomic Film Noir

His Kind of Woman from 1951 is a film noir with a difference. Apparently it took over a year to film with numerous rewrites and reshoots and ends up a bit of a mix, but ultimately it works. I didn’t know quite what to expect but this is one case where it pays to expect the unexpected. This was another film involving Howard Hughes and as with the previous Son of Sinbad, I was pleasantly surprised. I guess I had only heard about The Conqueror and didn’t know Howard Hughes made good films too. Actors in this film with whom I was familiar were Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, Vincent Price, Raymond Burr, and Jim Backus. It’s worth noting that this film features three of the all time best actors equally good at playing a good or a bad guy or maybe several things in between: Robert Mitchum, Raymond Burr, and Vincent Price.

The film starts out with the main character, Dan Milner, played by Robert Mitchum, as much in the dark as the audience. He is roughed up by some shady characters, then told to leave the country for a year and accept a large sum of money for doing so, which will eventually amount to $50,000.00. On his way to a Mexican resort, he meets Lenore Brent, played by Jane Russell, who looks stunning and sings two songs quite well. I haven’t watched enough film noirs to know if this one ripped off any but two scenes really reminded me of Casablanca: one near the beginning of the movie where Dan Milner talks to a black waiter named Sam, and then later at the Mexican resort where he helps out the wife of a young newlywed couple whose husband has gotten into financial difficulty. Someone involved in the writing must have at least seen Casablanca.

Also while at the resort, Dan Milner meets Mark Cardigan, a successful if ham actor and avid outdoorsman and hunter played by Vincent Price. Vincent Price is phenomenal in this film. He steals every scene he is in, even without dialogue. For instance, his actions while screening his latest film are hilarious. The thing is, up until his entrance this was a fairly straightforward, serious film noir. Once he arrives it is not only a comedy, practically a slapstick, it is his comedy. He befriends Dan Milner and when it becomes apparent that Dan is really in trouble and what the nature of the trouble is, it’s Mark Cardigan to the rescue, leaping at the chance to be a real life hero, quoting Shakespeare at every turn, with quotes appropriate to each moment, and wrapping himself in a cape, dramatically imitating Washington crossing the Delaware. This movie is an essential for Vincent Price fans, and may convert some non-fans.

The film contains a fair amount of smoking and drinking, including one pretend drunk scene. As far as violence, there are beatings, whippings, and a lot of shooting including one murder. There is also a very tense scene involving a poisoned hypodermic needle interspersed with the comic rescue efforts. The whole odd combination was successful as far as I was concerned and I found it really entertaining. I still wouldn’t recommend it for younger kids as they’d find the earlier part of the plot hard to follow and might get bored. For kids 14 and up as well as adults this movie should prove a real treat.