Am I getting senile? Is this what Alzheimer feels like? It was hard to follow this movie - and I mean a mere silly little 50s movie at that. For a while there I thought I was losing my mind, or that someone slipped a drug into my drink, or something or other. Scenes seem to be randomly attached for the most part.
This old-school cheese also features three leads who all act as if in different genres. Lana Turner thinks she's in a soaper, over-acting her way through this thing with the pathos of one hundred King Kong blonds. She maintains only one facial expression and that's one of a tortured soul, selflessly risking her life for the common good, always with that warm-hearted, worried look: so annoying. Nevermind the fact that her seedy past in no way shape or form fits this kind of behaviour. (We're talking comic-book-like characterization here.) Victor Immature, as childish as ever, lends some much-unneeded lack of seriousness to the proceedings. He must have thought he was filming a broad comedy, grinning like a moron, being as animated as as a pair of breasts in a porn film. Sometimes he was so over-the-top that I half-expected him to impersonate an ape by climbing a telephone poll... Seriously, they should have given him a couple of bananas; that might have helped calm him down a bit, because his thespianism is out of control. Only Clark Gable plays it like it should be played, namely as spy drama requires it.
The plot-twist about Victor Immature having become a traitor is okay. What isn't okay is that he became one because they shaved his Mommy's head! That's a bit lame, isn't it?... One would think that double agents and traitors were in it for the money, and occasionally perhaps for idealistic reason, too, but not because their Moms had been turned into skinheads. Besides, we never find out why his mother is suspected of being a Nazi accomplice. Also absurd was having an experienced, competent agent such as Gable hiring a woman who judging by her past couldn't be trusted with keeping a banana away from Victor, let alone a secret.
The movie is visually great, but one thing that did bother me regarding appearances is that Gable and Turner had practically the same hair-style! Lana has never looked worse, thanks to the crappy, short-haired, brunette look that some demented producer or insane hair-stylist cooked up here...
Someone here complained about the American accents. I disagree. It's the lesser of two evils. Or do some people in all earnestness think that the actors here should have lent even more of a cheese factor to this somewhat hokey movie by sounding laughable, doing unconvincing Dutch accents?
This old-school cheese also features three leads who all act as if in different genres. Lana Turner thinks she's in a soaper, over-acting her way through this thing with the pathos of one hundred King Kong blonds. She maintains only one facial expression and that's one of a tortured soul, selflessly risking her life for the common good, always with that warm-hearted, worried look: so annoying. Nevermind the fact that her seedy past in no way shape or form fits this kind of behaviour. (We're talking comic-book-like characterization here.) Victor Immature, as childish as ever, lends some much-unneeded lack of seriousness to the proceedings. He must have thought he was filming a broad comedy, grinning like a moron, being as animated as as a pair of breasts in a porn film. Sometimes he was so over-the-top that I half-expected him to impersonate an ape by climbing a telephone poll... Seriously, they should have given him a couple of bananas; that might have helped calm him down a bit, because his thespianism is out of control. Only Clark Gable plays it like it should be played, namely as spy drama requires it.
The plot-twist about Victor Immature having become a traitor is okay. What isn't okay is that he became one because they shaved his Mommy's head! That's a bit lame, isn't it?... One would think that double agents and traitors were in it for the money, and occasionally perhaps for idealistic reason, too, but not because their Moms had been turned into skinheads. Besides, we never find out why his mother is suspected of being a Nazi accomplice. Also absurd was having an experienced, competent agent such as Gable hiring a woman who judging by her past couldn't be trusted with keeping a banana away from Victor, let alone a secret.
The movie is visually great, but one thing that did bother me regarding appearances is that Gable and Turner had practically the same hair-style! Lana has never looked worse, thanks to the crappy, short-haired, brunette look that some demented producer or insane hair-stylist cooked up here...
Someone here complained about the American accents. I disagree. It's the lesser of two evils. Or do some people in all earnestness think that the actors here should have lent even more of a cheese factor to this somewhat hokey movie by sounding laughable, doing unconvincing Dutch accents?