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Macao (film)
Encyclopedia
Macao is a 1952 black-and-white
film noir
adventure film directed by Josef von Sternberg
and Nicholas Ray
. Producer Howard Hughes
fired director von Sternberg during filming and hired Nicholas Ray
to finish it. The drama features Robert Mitchum
, Jane Russell
, William Bendix
, and Gloria Grahame
.
on the same ship: Nick Cochran (Robert Mitchum
), a cynical-but-honest ex-serviceman, Julie Benson (Jane Russell
), an equally cynical, sultry night club singer, and Lawrence Trumble (William Bendix
), a traveling salesman who deals in both silk stockings and contraband
.
Corrupt police lieutenant Sebastian (Thomas Gomez
) notifies casino owner and underworld boss Vincent Halloran (Brad Dexter
) about the new arrivals. Halloran has tipped off about an undercover New York City policeman out to lure him into international waters
so he can be arrested. With only three strangers to choose from, Halloran assumes Nick is the cop. He tries to bribe a puzzled Nick to leave Macao, but Nick is interested in getting to know Julie better and turns him down. Halloran hires Julie as a singer, in part to find out what she knows about Nick.
Later, Trumble offers Nick a commission to help him sell a stolen diamond necklace. However, when Nick shows Halloran a diamond from the necklace, Halloran recognizes it; he had sent the jewelry to Hong Kong only a week earlier to be sold. Now sure of Nick's identity, he has the American taken prisoner for later questioning.
Nick is guarded by two thugs and Halloran's jealous girlfriend, Margie (Gloria Grahame
).
Worried that Halloran is planning to dump her for Julie, Margie lets Nick escape, with the two guards close behind. When Trumble happens on the late-night chase, he tries to help Nick and is killed, mistaken by the thugs for Nick. Before he dies, he tells Nick about the police boat waiting offshore.
When Nick tries to get Julie to go away with him, he learns that Halloran has invited her on a trip to Hong Kong (to retrieve his property). With this information, Nick is able to dispose of Halloran's murderous henchman, Itzumi (Philip Ahn), and take the helm of Halloran's boat. He steers for the waiting police and hands Halloran over to them.
Harry J. Wild
worked on the film and filming was completed in 1950 but the film was not released until 1952. Only stock footage was shot on location in Hong Kong
and Macau
.
When the film was first released, Bosley Crowther
, film critic for The New York Times
, lambasted the drama, writing, "All the other ingredients, including Miss Russell's famed physique, are pretty much the same as have been tumbled into previous cheesecakes with Jane and Bob...Macao is a flimflam and no more—a flimflam designed for but one purpose and that is to mesh the two stars. The story itself is pedestrian—a routine and standardized account of a guy getting caught in the middle of a cops-and-robbers thing. And except for some well-placed direction by Josef von Sternberg in a couple of scenes, especially in a "chase" among nets and rowboats, the job is conventional in style...'A fabulous speck on the Earth's surface'—that's Macao, the place and the film."
Black-and-white
Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...
film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
adventure film directed by Josef von Sternberg
Josef von Sternberg
Josef von Sternberg — born Jonas Sternberg — was an Austrian-American film director. He is particularly noted for his distinctive mise en scène, use of lighting and soft lens, and seven-film collaboration with actress Marlene Dietrich.-Youth:Von Sternberg was born Jonas Sternberg to a Jewish...
and Nicholas Ray
Nicholas Ray
Nicholas Ray was an American film director best known for the movie Rebel Without a Cause....
. Producer Howard Hughes
Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American business magnate, investor, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world...
fired director von Sternberg during filming and hired Nicholas Ray
Nicholas Ray
Nicholas Ray was an American film director best known for the movie Rebel Without a Cause....
to finish it. The drama features Robert Mitchum
Robert Mitchum
Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an American film actor, author, composer and singer and is #23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time...
, Jane Russell
Jane Russell
Jane Russell was an American film actress and was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s....
, William Bendix
William Bendix
William Bendix was an American film, radio, and television actor, best remembered in movies for the title role in the movie The Babe Ruth Story and for portraying clumsily earnest aircraft plant worker Chester A. Riley in radio and television's The Life of Riley...
, and Gloria Grahame
Gloria Grahame
Gloria Grahame was an American Academy Award–winning actress.Grahame began her acting career in theatre, and in 1944 she made her first film for MGM. Despite a featured role in It's a Wonderful Life , MGM did not believe she had the potential for major success, and sold her contract to RKO Studios...
.
Plot
Three strangers arrive at the port of MacaoMação
Mação is a municipality in Portugal with a total area of 400.0 km² and a total population of 7,763 inhabitants.The municipality is composed of eight parishes, and is located in the Santarém District....
on the same ship: Nick Cochran (Robert Mitchum
Robert Mitchum
Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an American film actor, author, composer and singer and is #23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time...
), a cynical-but-honest ex-serviceman, Julie Benson (Jane Russell
Jane Russell
Jane Russell was an American film actress and was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s....
), an equally cynical, sultry night club singer, and Lawrence Trumble (William Bendix
William Bendix
William Bendix was an American film, radio, and television actor, best remembered in movies for the title role in the movie The Babe Ruth Story and for portraying clumsily earnest aircraft plant worker Chester A. Riley in radio and television's The Life of Riley...
), a traveling salesman who deals in both silk stockings and contraband
Contraband
The word contraband, reported in English since 1529, from Medieval French contrebande "a smuggling," denotes any item which, relating to its nature, is illegal to be possessed or sold....
.
Corrupt police lieutenant Sebastian (Thomas Gomez
Thomas Gomez
Thomas Gomez was an American actor.Born Sabino Tomas Gomez in New York City, Gomez began his acting career in theater during the 1920s and was a student of the actor Walter Hampden...
) notifies casino owner and underworld boss Vincent Halloran (Brad Dexter
Brad Dexter
Brad Dexter , was an American actor.-Life and career:Dexter was born Boris Malanovich , in Goldfield, Nevada, of Serbian parentage. He spoke Serbian as his first language. Burly, dark and handsome, Brad Dexter was usually given supporting roles of a rugged character...
) about the new arrivals. Halloran has tipped off about an undercover New York City policeman out to lure him into international waters
International waters
The terms international waters or trans-boundary waters apply where any of the following types of bodies of water transcend international boundaries: oceans, large marine ecosystems, enclosed or semi-enclosed regional seas and estuaries, rivers, lakes, groundwater systems , and wetlands.Oceans,...
so he can be arrested. With only three strangers to choose from, Halloran assumes Nick is the cop. He tries to bribe a puzzled Nick to leave Macao, but Nick is interested in getting to know Julie better and turns him down. Halloran hires Julie as a singer, in part to find out what she knows about Nick.
Later, Trumble offers Nick a commission to help him sell a stolen diamond necklace. However, when Nick shows Halloran a diamond from the necklace, Halloran recognizes it; he had sent the jewelry to Hong Kong only a week earlier to be sold. Now sure of Nick's identity, he has the American taken prisoner for later questioning.
Nick is guarded by two thugs and Halloran's jealous girlfriend, Margie (Gloria Grahame
Gloria Grahame
Gloria Grahame was an American Academy Award–winning actress.Grahame began her acting career in theatre, and in 1944 she made her first film for MGM. Despite a featured role in It's a Wonderful Life , MGM did not believe she had the potential for major success, and sold her contract to RKO Studios...
).
Worried that Halloran is planning to dump her for Julie, Margie lets Nick escape, with the two guards close behind. When Trumble happens on the late-night chase, he tries to help Nick and is killed, mistaken by the thugs for Nick. Before he dies, he tells Nick about the police boat waiting offshore.
When Nick tries to get Julie to go away with him, he learns that Halloran has invited her on a trip to Hong Kong (to retrieve his property). With this information, Nick is able to dispose of Halloran's murderous henchman, Itzumi (Philip Ahn), and take the helm of Halloran's boat. He steers for the waiting police and hands Halloran over to them.
Cast
- Robert MitchumRobert MitchumRobert Charles Durman Mitchum was an American film actor, author, composer and singer and is #23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time...
as Nick Cochran - Jane RussellJane RussellJane Russell was an American film actress and was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s....
as Julie Benson - William BendixWilliam BendixWilliam Bendix was an American film, radio, and television actor, best remembered in movies for the title role in the movie The Babe Ruth Story and for portraying clumsily earnest aircraft plant worker Chester A. Riley in radio and television's The Life of Riley...
as Lawrence C. Trumble - Thomas GomezThomas GomezThomas Gomez was an American actor.Born Sabino Tomas Gomez in New York City, Gomez began his acting career in theater during the 1920s and was a student of the actor Walter Hampden...
as Lt. Sebastian - Gloria GrahameGloria GrahameGloria Grahame was an American Academy Award–winning actress.Grahame began her acting career in theatre, and in 1944 she made her first film for MGM. Despite a featured role in It's a Wonderful Life , MGM did not believe she had the potential for major success, and sold her contract to RKO Studios...
as Margie - Brad DexterBrad DexterBrad Dexter , was an American actor.-Life and career:Dexter was born Boris Malanovich , in Goldfield, Nevada, of Serbian parentage. He spoke Serbian as his first language. Burly, dark and handsome, Brad Dexter was usually given supporting roles of a rugged character...
as Vincent Halloran - Edward Ashley as Martin Stewart
- Philip Ahn as Itzumi
- Vladimir SokoloffVladimir Sokoloff-Biography:Sokoloff was born in Moscow, Russia. He became an actor and assistant director with the Moscow Art Theatre, before emigrating to Berlin in 1923...
as Kwan Sum Tang
Production
When many of Von Sternberg's scenes made no sense dramatically, Ray asked Mitchum to write several bridging scenes. CinematographerCinematographer
A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...
Harry J. Wild
Harry J. Wild
Harry J. Wild, A.S.C. was a film and television cinematographer. Wild worked at RKO Pictures studios from 1931 through the 1950s...
worked on the film and filming was completed in 1950 but the film was not released until 1952. Only stock footage was shot on location in Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
and Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...
.
Critical reception
Film critic Dennis Schwartz lauded the casting of Jane Russell and Robert Mitchum, writing, "A wonderfully tongue-in-cheek scripted RKO adventure story directed by Josef von Sternberg...Jane Russell enthralls as she gets romanced by the laconic Mitchum, and they create movie magic together through their brilliant nuanced performances. The sultry actress was never better, as she belts out a few torch songs, tosses insults at Mitchum with natural ease, shows her romantic side and looks right through the leering bad guys of Macao as if they didn't exist. She's the good-bad girl, while he's the hard-luck innocent who can't even win when playing with loaded dice. They're both film noir characters, who Jane sums up when she tells her man: 'Everybody's lonely, worried, and sorry. Everybody's looking for something.' If you are looking for an underrated film noir gem—that somehow got swept under the rug—this is it!"When the film was first released, Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...
, film critic for The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, lambasted the drama, writing, "All the other ingredients, including Miss Russell's famed physique, are pretty much the same as have been tumbled into previous cheesecakes with Jane and Bob...Macao is a flimflam and no more—a flimflam designed for but one purpose and that is to mesh the two stars. The story itself is pedestrian—a routine and standardized account of a guy getting caught in the middle of a cops-and-robbers thing. And except for some well-placed direction by Josef von Sternberg in a couple of scenes, especially in a "chase" among nets and rowboats, the job is conventional in style...'A fabulous speck on the Earth's surface'—that's Macao, the place and the film."
External links
- Macao trailer at Turner Classic MoviesTurner Classic MoviesTurner Classic Movies is a movie-oriented cable television channel, owned by the Turner Broadcasting System subsidiary of Time Warner, featuring commercial-free classic movies, mostly from the Turner Entertainment and MGM, United Artists, RKO and Warner Bros. film libraries...
Media Room - Macao film clip at You Tube (Jane Russell sings "One for My Baby")