Hypnotape

I first saw this movie in 1950 when it was released. I thought it was a good drama, more or less accurately portraying many of the problems of Latin American governments, with good dialog particularly between the two male leads. Incidentally, I did not find either character particularly sympathetic, but no matter. Many of the comments here have mentioned the resemblance to Eva Peron of the Signe Hasso character. Just an interesting observation: In the much later made for TV movie, Evita Peron, Signe Hasso and Jose Ferrer both had roles. He was the tango singer who seduced Evita and took her to Buenos Aires. She was the aging actress who befriended the young Dva Duarte and found herself in a jail cell. Of the two movies, Crisis is by far the better film. Evita Peron was a ripoff.

As one who has a long-standing interest in the Peron regime, I really looked forward to the release of movie on television. I found it a big disappointment, mostly due to a bad script. It was a pastiche of scenes based on the biographies available at the time, one of which was the notoriously slanted and inaccurate Woman with the Whip. One particularly bad segment showed the Signe Hasso character who had helped Evita as a young actress. When she (Hasso) meets her (Peron) later after she is in power she refuses to take money from her, and gratuitously insults her, ending up in a jail cell. The point of the scene was that Evita was a vindictive woman (she was) who turned on those who had once been her friends (she did), but the scene as presented was pointless and contrived. Another egregious error had Peron running for president against Farrell (he did not - Farrell was his friend). It would be like having a movie about Nixon where he ran for president against Eisenhower. One thing that was interesting is that both Signe Hasso and Jose Ferrer were in the movie, and in the 1950 film Crisis they played a South American dictatorial couple who many thought more than superficially resembled the Perons. Just an interesting (to me) coincidence.

This was a tight, neat little thriller, better than most of its kind at the time. I guess you would call it a true noir, which the House on 92nd Street was not quite. It wasn't totally plausible, but it was close enough for what it was. The supporting cast was all good with what they had to do, especially lovable Edmund Gwenn in an against-type villainous role. I would like to comment on Signe Hasso. I fell in love with her in The House on 92nd Street, and saw this movie not long after that. She was a good actress, very unappreciated I felt, and never looked more gorgeous than she did in this film. I find even now that most people have never heard of her and am glad to find from various postings about her movies on this website that she had other fans. The last minute change of heart for her character in the movie, who had been well portrayed as a rather cold, scheming adventuress was a bit unrealistic, but that's Hollywood of old. All in all I liked the flick. James Craig was a hunk, sort of Clark Gable, but not quite.