His Kind of Woman

Synopsis: Feature film. Gambler Dan Milner (Robert Mitchum) accepts $5,000 to fly to a remote resort in Mexico for purposes undisclosed. On arrival, Dan finds the ostensibly rich, carefree guests all playing roles...except, possibly, ham actor Mark Cardigan (Vincent Price). Both become involved in a complicated plot being hatched by deported Mafiosi Nick Ferraro (Raymond Burr) to re-enter the USA. Shakespeare references abound as Vincent Price’s movie star character comes to screen centre: when ham actor Cardigan finally sets off to do the daring deeds he’s only done in movies, he quotes Hamlet: "Now might I drink hot blood and do such bitter business the earth would quake to look upon!" To his wife’s snort of disgust, "Hamlet again!" he responds with an impassioned, "Oh, what fools ye mortals be..." as he sashays out the door with his gun. Other Shakespearean (mis)quotations include passages from Richard III, Macbeth and The Tempest.
Language: English
Country: United States
Medium: Film
Technical information: Black-and-white / Sound
Year of release: 1951
Duration: 120 mins

Director

John Farrow; Richard Fleischer

Producer

Howard Hughes (2); Robert Sparks

Cinematographer

Harry J. Wild

Writer

Frank Fenton; Jack Leonard

Editor

Eda Warren; Frederic Knudtson

Music

Leigh Harline

Production Design

Joseph McMillan Johnson

Art Direction

Albert S. D’Agostino

Cast

Notes: The DVD is currently (8/2006) only available as part of the Film Noir Classics Collection Vol. 3 box set.
General: Vincent Price seemed to have a penchant for playing Shakespeare-citing avengers: in Andre de Toth’s House of Wax (1953) Price’s Professor Henry Jarrod cites Othello and Hamlet while giving a tour of his newly opened wax museum : "The modern Bluebeard, like his namesake, he killed not wisely but too well, and did away with eight wives. . . . Matthew Burke, the stockbroker, found hanged . . . . Was it murder or suicide? Only time will tell. ‘Foul deeds will rise, / Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.'" Both Jarrod and Mark Cardigan anticipate Vincent Price’s later role as failed Shakespearean actor and avenger in Theater of Blood (1973).

Name: RKO
Notes: Home Video rights in the UK are handled bu Universal Home Video (qv). TV rights in the UK are held by the BBC. US rights are held by Warner Home Video.

Shakespeare, "His Kind of Woman". https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/shakespeare/search/index.php/title/av38327 (Accessed 26 Nov 2024)

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