In November, promising "timeless suspense thrillers," Warner Home Video released their "Film Noir Classic Collection - Volume 3." It had taken them nearly three years to get around to the 1951 potboiler "His Kind of Woman," preserving its hokey Hollywood dialogue in a high-quality DVD.
While every shot is beautifully lit, from a seedy bar to a swank resort, the movie is still a classic B movie. Robert Mitchum's character is a gambler caught in the crosshairs of the mob, but it's not long before Jane Russell appears in his doorway in a shimmering evening gown. ("Hey," she whispers seductively. "If you'd lock your door, you wouldn't lose things.") On the beach, she asks him to rub suntan lotion on her back. And things progress from there.
"I'm what you call a spoiled child of the rich," she says coyly.
"I'm what you call a spoiled child of the poor..." he replies.
The resort's proprietor gave him some friendly advice: "This is no time to get mixed up with a woman. Especially someone else's woman." But nothing can stop their inevitable romance - and the wildly implausible dialogue leading up to it.
"We ought to get along fine. I'm a gambler myself." "Oh? How high do you like to play?" "If I told you, you wouldn't believe me." (She strips to her bathing suit)
"You see how it is. Fools get away with the impossible." "That's because they're the only ones who try it." (They kiss)
The cast offers some other surprises. Jim Backus turns up at the resort as a wealthy industrialist on vacation, and Raymond Burr plays the notorious crime kingpin, Nick Ferraro. (His henchmen include one uncredited appearance by Paul Frees, who would later provide the voice of Boris Badinov, the arch-rival of Bullwinkle the Moose!) Howard Hughes himself worked on the movie's script. And much of the movie is devoted to a character parodying Erroll Flynn - played by Vincent Price.
As "Mark Cardigan," Price's character is an unhappily married movie idol (who seems more interested in his male publicist). After the movie spends its first hour meandering around the resort, it reaches its climactic showdown with the gangsters - and Price's character is thrilled to face real-life action. ("This is man's work," he tells Jane Russell, as he grabs for his gun. "Women are for weeping.") There were rumors that Howard Hughes was gay, which lend an odd mystique to parts of the movie. (In one scene Robert Mitchum gets a shirtless belt-whipping, and is stowed below deck in a steam-filled engine room.) Price's character has faced bogus tabloid rumors about a relationship with Jane Russell's character - "Lenore Brent" - and there's an odd poignancy to his speeches about having "played a thousand parts"
The movie includes lots of lingering shots with melodramatic music of a gun or a menacing needle. (As a doctor/henchman tries to inject Mitchum with a poison, he keeps getting interrupted for several minutes.) But it never builds much tension, leaving viewers to find entertainment in the movie's laughable dialogue instead.
"You know," Mitchum tells Jane Russell, "you could be a handy thing to have around the house if a man went broke."