An early starring role for Jeff Chandler, hot off his impressive turn in Sword of the Desert. He plays a Lucky Luciano style gangster who is deported to Italy where he has a romance with a wealthy widow (Marta Toren) and has hassle with a former associate who wants some cash, the maguffin of this story.
That's a decent set up and it has a pretty good story. It's got a solid character arc with Chandler going from cynical heel to opportunist to decent person. There are decent complications - the person from Chandler's past, a black marketeer in Italy, a cop on his trail, a sexy woman who works for the baddy.
The cast (seem to be?) mostly actual Italians, which adds to the air of freshness and reality, although I do admit part of the appeal of these movies is often seeing familiar faces in the supporting cast, which wasn't the case here (I'm not that familiar even with Toren). Chandler is a strong lead - you believe him being a gangster. Marta Toren isn't very good but her character is interesting - a wealthy widow. I generally enjoy movies based on Robert Buckner scripts and this is no exception.
This benefits from location filming in Italy, although it is in black and white when colour would've been preferable - something I noticed with Chandler's Smuggler's Island.
It's a programmer, don't get me wrong - the sort of movie to watch late night on TV, or on a Sunday afternoon. But it has an interesting set up - plenty of gangsters have tried to get into the US Lucky Luciano style (Key Largo, His Kind of Woman) but few focus on the gangster in Italy - plus location shooting.
No comments:
Post a Comment