On H List of Movie Reviews

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His Kind of Woman (1951)

Rate: 8
Viewed: 5/09, 2/24

HisKind
5/09: His Kind of Woman is a weird film noir.

Having shown curiosity, my patience seemed to pay off handsomely well during the unraveling of the mystery. Yet, at the 80th minute mark, it started to disintegrate into smithereens. Robert Mitchum was doing fine on his own until Vincent Price took a lot of screen time away from him, prompting me to ask, "Who the hell is the picture for?"

The plot is nonsensical because the main question should be: "Why travel to Mexico to steal somebody's identity when Ferraro could have arranged for Milner to come to Italy to save himself the trouble?" Then, all of a sudden, he changes his mind and makes things worse by waiting until the last minute.

All in all, His Kind of Woman is uneven in many aspects.

2/24: Upgrading my rating from '3' to '8', His Kind of Woman is much better now.

Robert Mitchum plays a professional gambler who's paid $50,000 to stay in Mexico for a year. That's the confusion of the first hour. It wasn't getting anywhere, but as soon as the twist was revealed, the movie started to improve. Jane Russell plays a big part in that, but it's Vincent Price who stole the show during the second hour although the comedy that he was providing seemed to be a risky move for a film noir picture.

I like the editing; it's back-and-forth a lot. The best part is when Vincent Price got his men to embark for the yacht and the boat sank by going over weight. There's a lot of talking to pass the time, but the chemistry between Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell is extremely strong. Raymond Burr plays Nick Ferraro who may have been inspired by Lucky Luciano.

All in all, hands-on RKO owner Howard Hughes' insistence on what changes were needed for His Kind of Woman proves to be exceedingly beneficial.