Singapore (1947)

Dreadfully Boring

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

On her way up the Hollywood ladder MGM loaned Ava Gardner out for this potboiler adventure film Singapore. As the area suggests romance and mystery just the title alone would bring in a few customers at the box office. In fact Singapore still is an area of intrigue though now enjoying a prosperity that could not have been imagined when this film was made.Fred MacMurray and Ava Gardner are a pair of star crossed lovers who marry just before the Japanese invade and occupy the city. MacMurray has a fortune in pearls that he stashes and while trying to retrieve them the bombs are dropped and he thinks Gardner is killed. He barely gets away in his schooner with other refugees without pearls and without Ava who he married just before the attack.After the war Fred's back to get his pearls, but he sees Ava now married to Roland Culver and with a bad case of amnesia. And he's got other problems as villains Thomas Gomez and George Lloyd want them as well. Singapore was created on the Universal back lot and didn't have the advantage that its remake Istanbul had with color and location shooting. But they did make a better film though not all that much better. It's been compared to Casablanca by many to the detriment of Singapore. But those letters of transit that will allow two people, which two to escape and join the fight against Nazism are a much bigger prize than Fred's pearls. You care a lot more about Bogey, Bergman, and Henreid than the triangle here. And this film didn't have As Time Goes By either.MacMurray and Gardner also don't have the chemistry that Bogey and Bergman do. But that's not fair, who else ever did?Singapore is your routine potboiler another film MacMurray was grabbing for the paycheck after he left Paramount. As for Ava after The Killers and The Hucksters it was not a step down, but just keeping her on the same career plateau as before.

Ava Gardner is such a pleasure to look at, even a B movie in which she plays makes my time worthwhile .Actually,Fred McMurray has got pearls and a gem .The screenplay is far-fetched -with an improbable outcome- and includes smuggling,war (no battles or camp of prisoners though),and even amnesia -but the viewer is not taken in by it a single minute ;there is of course the usual flashback ,which can be found in almost all the films noirs of the era.Compared to "the killers" ,Gardner's precedent movie ,it's obvious Brahm is no match for Siodmak.A couple of tourists -the kind of people we often see in the hotels- provides the comic relief.If you do not ask too much ,it's pretty entertaining and well acted.

Fred Macmurray played one unforgettable role as Walter Neff in "Double Indemnity" (1944) and I cannot quite separate him from this role when I see FM perform in other films like "Singapore" where he plays Matt Gordon a pearl smuggler.I fervently believe the best acted performances come from the actor having an affinity or some actual practical experience of the role in real life.I am not saying FM was into insurance fraud but he looked more comfortable in an American setting.The plot has been adequately commented on by other reviewers above, most notably by Terrell-4 from San Antonio Texas, whose review I commend.There were a few things I found irritating and getting a second rate TV director will not produce a first class film.First, after Ava Gardner had being roughed up by one of the "baddies" to get her to talk, there was not a blemish, bruise or mark on her Venus like face.When FM wants to pay for his bar bills he decides how much he will pay leaving some notes on the table, without waiting to receive a bill - I noticed he did this on at least two occasions.Yet again actors (FM) appear to be able to walk through other guests hotel bedroom doors or magically have the right key in their pockets, this is a general continuity criticism of films of this era; so much for hotel security.What is an American gangster doing in Singapore? One of the "heavies" sounded like he came from 1920s Chicage!On the plus side I liked Roland Culver's performance as plantation manager van Leiden who played an honest man who is prepared to give up his Venus like wife because he knows she really loves Walter Neff (sorry FM).Richard Haydn for once plays it straight as the police commissioner in colonial Singapore on the trail of local malefactors and I hardly recognised him compared to say his performance as Mr Wilson in "Cluny Brown" (1946).Taken all together I found it enjoyable but uneven and therefore rated it 6/10.

Not quite a melodrama; not quite a suspense thriller. Not quite an A movie but certainly not a B-level. Singapore takes place, of course, in Singapore, just as the Japanese are invading and then just after the end of WWII. It's a reasonably solid, efficient story of three people: Matt Gordon (Fred MacMurray), a suave and slightly sardonic smuggler of pearls. Gordon is an honest man at heart, but usually can't resist easy money and the kind of gambles necessary to win it; Michael Van Leyden (Roland Culver), a wealthy planter who spent most of the wars years in a Japanese-run prison camp. He's a brisk, authoritative man with one great weakness. He loves his wife; and Linda Grahame (Ava Gardiner), a beautiful, sultry young woman, perhaps something of an adventuress. She and Gordon fall in love and are to be married. Then the Japanese invade, bombs fall, and when Gordon leaves Linda for a moment to retrieve pearls he had hidden in his hotel room, he returns without the pearls to burning waterfront ruins and no sign of Linda. He searches desperately and then must leave in his boat, which is crowded with refugees. We can imagine his surprise five years later when he returns to Singapore after the war and sees in a posh nightclub a beautiful young woman who looks exactly like Linda. She is dancing with Van Leyden...and when she is introduced to Matt Gordon, he learns she is Ann Van Leyden, Michael's wife. Yes, that most useful of plot devices is established...amnesia. Matt Gordon is determined to do two things. He is certain that if Ann Van Leyden can only recover her memory she will remember him and their love. He is almost equally determined to recover the pearls he had hidden in his hotel room before the war. Van Leyden is determined to keep his wife, whom he loves dearly, by his side. They had met in that prison camp during the war. Van Leyden saved Ann many times. He will do almost anything, except cause her unhappiness, to save her again. And Ann...or is it Linda? What does she want? See the movie. Hovering in the background is the shady Mr. Mauribus (Thomas Gomez), a large-figured and often sweaty crook who has a claim to Gordon's pearls. While Mauribus won't stoop to physical violence himself, his assistant, Sascha, is all too eager to be let off the lease. It's no spoiler to say that everyone except Mr. Mauribus and Sascha eventually act with honor. A happy ending is in the cards at the start of the movie when Matt Gordon enters the old hotel, pauses in the lobby and then tells a bellhop to take his luggage to his room. He looks around the deserted bar and then walks to a small table for two, partly hidden by palm fronds. When the waiter arrives, Gordon orders two gin slings. Yes, that was what he and Linda always drank here, hidden away in their own world. For Fred MacMurray, a reliable and versatile leading man, this is one more of the many lead roles he took where his personality and competence made a career for him. If he didn't set many sparks off, he also didn't make many duds. For Ava Gardner, however, this was one of her early starring roles where the studio was deliberately building her up for bigger and better things. She looks great, acts a bit, and has a sympathetic character to play. For me, the joy and interest in the movie, however, rests with three character actors. There's Richard Haydn playing deputy commissioner Hewitt. It's a straight, honest role and Haydn does it just fine. The fun is remembering all those comic roles Haydn worked his way into, where he deliberately unleashed his adenoids. Watch him as the butler in And Then There Were None (1945). Few people could play oozy, greasy opportunists, cowards and villains as well as Thomas Gomez. Given a chance, he also could do just fine in sympathetic parts. Watch him as John Garfield's older brother in Force of Evil (1948). Most of all, there's Roland Culver, a superb, highly skilled British actor who spent some time in Hollywood but returned to England. He was at his very best playing highly competent men of the world. He was as much at home in sophisticated comedy as he was in serious drama. For the sophisticated comedy part, you can't do better than to watch him in On Approval (1944). And to prove he hadn't lost his edge in old age, watch him as the elderly and irascible Duke of Omnium in The Pallisers (1974).