The Bribe (1948)

[dave jenkins]

CJ and D&D keep making these film pages, so I might as well join in the fun (although this has been cannibalized from the film noir thread):

The Bribe (1948) - 7/10. Set on the island of Backlot, Central America/Central Hollywood, Robert Taylor plays a government agent in town to get the goods on a ring illicitly moving surplus airplane engines (say What?). The gang sees him coming and sends Charles Laughton to offer him money to look the other way. When that doesn't work, they offer him another bribe:

How can he resist? Easy, he's Robert Taylor. He just continues to adopt his persona as a handsomely carved block of wood and goes on. The gang then decides to take the usual next step. There's a big game fishing sequence that turns deadly that is well done--in spite of stock footage, rear projection, and a studio tank, it's actually quite suspenseful. Then it's time for the gang to close ranks; which means, taking care of the weak links. The mastermind, Vincent Price, plays an uncharacteristically hands-on villain in this one.

"But you know, the pity is, when I'm paid, I always see the job through."


This takes us to the final set piece, which is climatically climactic.


"I see your fireworks, and raise you."


"I call!"

[cigar joe]

I'll have to check this one out 

[cigar joe]

Caught this this morning on TCM, great sets, 7/10

[dave jenkins]

I'll have to try my disc again in my new Blu-ray player. I think the freezing I experienced was in my old Sherwood, which wasn't reliable.

[cigar joe]

I'll have to try my disc again in my new Blu-ray player. I think the freezing I experienced was in my old Sherwood, which wasn't reliable.

Let us know how it goes ;-).

[dave jenkins]

Yeah, it worked fine last night in my LG. And for an Warner Archive disc, I've really no complaints about the image.

Sampling scenes, I came across the song sung by Ava Gardner's character (voiced by Who Knows?) called "Situation Wanted"--really a nice tune. I suppose it owes something to "Begin The Beguine" and may be one of millions like it, but I enjoyed it enough to sit through it twice. This is the kind of song Godley & Creme would send up so well 30 years later.

Charles Laughton is really good in this! I'm thinking maybe I should raise my score to an "8". . . .

[drinkanddestroy]

Just saw this one on TCM; I agree with the 7/10 rating. And I see CJ gave this movie the same rating in the RTLMYS thread, so we're 7/10 all around.

As to your initial line about making threads: Please make many more of them. CJ and I are dying for other people to join in the "fun." We'd like to have a thread for each noir and so we were making a bunch of threads when nobody else was, but we'd be mighty pleased if you and the others made threads for those noirs that don't already have 

As for the movie, Charles Laughton is really good here. Robert Taylor is his usual self, always solid never spectacular.

Was this whole movie made on the MGM backlot? If so, that's an amazing job by the set designers; I definitely thought they went down south for at least a few scenes. And they definitely got some authentic Latin Americans, rather than white boys with mud on their face saying "Ola Senor"

What I really didn't like is the narration by Taylor that opens the movie, in which he talks to himself, eg "You told yourself you were only going there as part of the job..." I thought the writers just took an easy and uncreative way out to tell us half the story, I really didn't like that part. But, the cast is solid, the film moves along, not a bad watch 

[dave jenkins]

Was this whole movie made on the MGM backlot? If so, that's an amazing job by the set designers; I definitely thought they went down south for at least a few scenes.

My guess is that they didn't go any further south than Catalina.

[cigar joe]

merge

[dave jenkins]

You did the merge wrong. One version had all my screen caps, the other had most but not all. You put the one in with the missing caps.

[cigar joe]

upped to 8/10 second go round

[titoli]

Gardner at her peak (not a single shot in which she looks less than gorgeous)? Laughton's best performance ever (maybe in The Bounty was as good, but it's ages since  saw it)? The shark attack and the shooting finale are good but the rest is boring. Taylor is miscast: he doesn't look ambiguous as his character is. Hadn't realized how tall Price was: Taylor is dwarfed by him. 7\10

[drinkanddestroy]

Laughton's best performance ever (maybe in The Bounty was as good, but it's ages since  saw it)?

Nooooo

Laughton is always good, but no way can you say this is definitely better than his performances in Advise and Consent or Witness for the Prosecution

[titoli]

Nooooo

Laughton is always good, but no way can you say this is definitely better than his performances in Advise and Consent or Witness for the Prosecution

I'll find a way.