Foreign Intrigue (1956)
An underrated transition film, a low budget affair that is pure European color and style. Visually, it almost presages the Euro-American "Charade" which was decidedly more up budget. Here, the director, an unknown Sheldon Reynolds, takes advantage of all the empty spaces and long pauses the pace required. The lighting is flat, almost anti-noir, with widescreen grandness and yet an oddly impersonal intimacy. Not to be contradictory--the scenes are generally quiet, with close conversations, but everything is filmed from a certain, and constant, distance.
It is this steady, quiet pace that makes the film work. And Robert Mitchum. He needs no explanation. The first of the two or three main women he connects with is a bit false, but the main one is a caricature of the Nordic beauty, and with sincere energy and charm. At times it really does look like she is smiling at Mitchum, not his character, as if she can't believe she's touring Stockholm, etc., with this famous man, and the movie gets away with it. Mitchum for his part keeps his cool, except for the necessary fist fight once or twice.
It's 1956, and international intrigues like this are slowly rising into a genre of their own. People come and go, scenes are not what they seem at first, people have false identities and foreign accents. The big theme (too big to believe, but that's okay, it's supposed to be) is that realignment of global power after WWII. The real thing, made up of shadowy individuals who seem to be above nationality, and only know about intrigue, money, and winning at any cost.
I don't want to pump this up too much. It's slow at times, and the acting not always right on. The effects (the atmosphere, the fights, etc) are sometimes so archly false you can't quite accept it even as theatrical, but just a cheap. But that's the exception. Fall into the pace of it and it's not bad at all.
