His Kind of Woman (John Farrow, 1951)

Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell in His Kind of Woman

Cast: Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, Vincent Price, Tim Holt, Charles McGraw, Marjorie Reynolds, Raymond Burr, Leslye Banning, Jim Backus, Philip Van Zandt, John Mylong, Carleton G. Young. Screenplay: Frank Fenton, Jack Leonard. Cinematography: Harry J. Wild. Production design: J. McMillan Johnson. Film editing: Frederic Knudtson, Eda Warren. Music: Leigh Harline. 

His Kind of Woman starts out as a tough-talking film noir and ends up as a knockabout action comedy. The credit or blame for that belongs to Howard Hughes, the RKO studio head and executive producer, who waited until John Farrow had finished the movie and then had Richard Fleischer re-shoot it, even recasting the villain, originally played by Lee Van Cleef, with Raymond Burr. The New York Times reviewer hated it, partly because of the shift in tone, but most people like it. Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell were never going to outdo Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in dialogue like "They tell me you killed Ferraro. How did it feel?" "He didn't say." But they're good enough at it that they give the movie a core that the flurry of oddball characters and the loony setup for the plot needs. Vincent Price is wonderful as an Errol Flynnish movie star who spouts tags from Shakespeare as he joins Mitchum in taking on the bad guys. Hughes made sure that Russell's gowns, designed by Howard Greer, were as revealing as possible, and Mitchum spends a lot of the film without his shirt, looking a little thick in the waist to contemporary viewers used to gym-toned physiques. The end product probably wasn't worth the money Hughes lost on it, but it's still fun.  

The Revolt of Mamie Stover (Raoul Walsh, 1956)

Jane Russell in The Revolt of Mamie Stover 

Cast: Jane Russell, Richard Egan, Joan Leslie, Agnes Moorehead, Jorja Curtright, Michael Pate, Richard Coogan, Alan Reed. Screenplay: Sydney Boehm, based on a novel by William Bradford Huie. Cinematography: Leo Tover. Art direction: Mark-Lee Kirk, Lyle R. Wheeler. Film editing: Louis R. Loeffler. Music: Hugo Friedhofer. 

Macao (Josef von Sternberg, 1952)

Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell in Macao

Cast: Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, William Bendix, Thomas Gomez, Gloria Grahame, Brad Dexter, Edward Ashley, Philip Ahn, Vladimir Sokoloff, Don Zelaya. Screenplay: Bernard C. Schoenfeld, Stanley Rubin, Robert Creighton Williams. Cinematography: Harry J. Wild. Art direction: Ralph Berger, Albert S. D'Agostino. Film editing: Samuel E. Beetley, Robert Golden. Music: Anthony Collins.

Macao has the makings of a much better movie: two enormously potent and well-matched stars, a solid supporting cast, a legendary director, an exotic setting, and a twisty, noirish plot. What it doesn't have is dialogue worthy of speaking. The actors give the right twists to their lines, but too often they fall flat. "You don't want that junk," Brad Dexter's Halloran says to his mistress, Margie (Gloria Grahame), about the jewel she's flashing. "Diamonds would only cheapen you." "Yeah," she replies, "but what a way to be cheapened." At another point, Robert Mitchum's Nick Cochran tells Margie, "You know, you remind me of an old Egyptian girlfriend of mine: the Sphinx." She retorts, "Are you partial to females made of stone?" This is tin-eared repartee at best, delivered by the actors as if they were the witty work of better screenwriters like Jules Furthman or Ben Hecht. Still, the opportunity to see Mitchum paired with Jane Russell, one of the few actresses capable of putting him in his place, is irresistible. She plays Julie Benson, an itinerant night club singer who meets Cochran on board the ship on which they're making their way from Hong Kong to Macao. He's a soldier of fortune, on the lam from some sort of misdeed in New York. She picks his pocket, keeps the dough, and tosses his wallet, which contains his passport, overboard. They cross paths again in Macao, where she goes to work for club owner Halloran, who has his own problems with the police. He knows that a detective is coming to Macao to try to nab him, and when Cochran shows up to try to get his money back from Julie, Halloran mistakes him for the detective. In fact, the detective turns out to be in disguise as a traveling salesman called Lawrence C. Trumble (William Bendix), whom Julie and Cochran met earlier on the ship. What follows is much ado about a diamond necklace that Halloran left in a safe deposit box in Hong Kong which Trumble is using to try to lure Halloran across the three-mile limit outside Macao so the police can arrest him. Some double-crosses and chase scenes and a few murders ensue before Cochran and Julie can embrace in the final scene. There's enough good stuff to overcome the misfired dialogue, despite the film's reputation as a troubled shoot in which the actors fought constantly with Sternberg, then at the end of his career. Nicholas Ray completed the film after Sternberg left the shoot, which started in 1950 -- RKO owner Howard Hughes held it from release as he tried to build Russell's  career, which he had launched with hype and controversy over The Outlaw (1943). The delay also explains why Gloria Grahame feels miscast in such a small role in Macao: Her career had taken off while the film was on the shelf.

The Outlaw (Howard Hughes, 1943)

The Outlaw (Howard Hughes, 1943)

Cast: Jack Buetel, Jane Russell, Thomas Mitchell, Walter Huston, Mimi Aguglia, Joe Sawyer, Gene Rizzi. Screenplay: Jules Furthman. Cinematography: Gregg Toland. Art direction: Perry Ferguson. Film editing: Wallace Grissell. Music: Victor Young.

Any list of great bad movies that doesn't include The Outlaw is not to be trusted. Because it is certainly bad, with a callow performance by Jack Buetel as Billy the Kid, a one-note (sultry pouting) performance by Jane Russell as Rio, and disappointing ones from old pros Thomas Mitchell and Walter Huston. It's ineptly directed by Howard Hughes, with awkward blocking and an abundance of scenes that don't go much of anywhere. It was weakened by Hughes's battles with the censors over Russell's cleavage and over the sexual innuendos -- an inept explanation that Rio and Billy were married while he was in a coma serves to legitimate the fact that they are sleeping together after he revives. It also implies that Billy rapes Rio, but she falls in love with him anyway. It's laden with a gay subtext, suggesting that Pat Garrett and Doc Holliday are in love with Billy -- and with each other. It's full of Western clichés and one of the corniest music tracks ever provided by a major film composer: Victor Young shamelessly borrows a theme from Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 as a love motif for Rio and Billy, falls back on "Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie" at dramatic moments, and "mickey mouses" a lot of the action, including bassoons and "wah-wah" sounds from the trumpets to punch up comic moments. And yet, it's kind of a great bad movie for all of these reasons, and because it reflects its producer-director's megalomania, resulting in countless stories about his behind-the-scenes manipulation, his hyped-up "talent search" for stars that produced Russell (who became one) and Buetel (who didn't), and most famously, his use of his engineering talents to construct a brassiere for Russell that would perk up her breasts the way he wanted. (Russell apparently found it so uncomfortable that she secretly ditched it and adjusted her own bra to his specifications.)

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Howard Hawks, 1953)

Given the sexism and vulgarity that underlies the teaming of Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell -- two women best known at the time for their bodies, not for their talents as actresses or singers -- it's gratifying that Gentlemen Prefer Blondes turned out to be a landmark film in both their careers. Some of it has to do with the director, Howard Hawks, who despite his reputation for womanizing created some of the most memorable roles for such actresses as Katharine Hepburn, Jean Arthur, Rosalind Russell, Lauren Bacall, and many others. Certainly neither Russell nor Monroe ever showed more wit and liveliness than they do here, even though Monroe is playing the gold-digging ditz part that she came to resent, especially after having to play it again the same year in How to Marry a Millionaire (Jean Negulesco), and Russell is stuck with the wise-cracking sidekick role. Both stars are paired with lackluster leading men, Elliott Reid and Tommy Noonan, but while it might have been fun to see someone like Cary Grant in Reid's part, that kind of casting would probably have thrown the film off-balance. Better that we have Charles Coburn's bedazzled old lech, young George Winslow's precocious appreciation of Monroe's "animal magnetism," and Marcel Dalio's judge overwhelmed by Russell's hilarious impersonation of Monroe's Lorelei Lee. The production numbers, choreographed by Jack Cole, costumed by Travilla, and filmed by Harry J. Wild in a candy-store Technicolor that we'll not see the like of again, are exceptional showcases for Russell and Monroe: The former's baritonish growl blends perfectly with the latter's sweet and wispy soprano (though some of Monroe's high notes were provided by Marni Nixon).