Review of Rendezvous

I was going to give Rosalind Russell a thorough going over for her ridiculously heavy-handed performance in this espionage comedy-drama, but I see that the role was actually designed for Myrna Loy and that Russell was assigned at the very last moment when Loy went on strike. Anyway, Roz manages to throw the film way off balance. Incompetent direction doesn't help either, though once again, it's only Russell's scenes (of which there are many) that are incompetently handled. At some stage Sam Wood was brought into the film, but if he handled any of Russell's scenes he obviously had no more success in inducing her to tone down and stop trying to steal the movie from Powell. As for Powell, he doesn't bother to compete with Russell's aggressive scene-stealing. The rest of the movie is pretty suspenseful with some good performances from Binnie Barnes and Samuel S. Hinds. Production values are extremely lavish, even by MGM's over-the-top standards.