Saigon *** (1948, Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Douglas Dick, Wally Cassell, Morris Carnovsky) – Classic Movie Review 7123

The fairly imaginative 1948 crime action adventure film Saigon again pairs the sizzling hit team of Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, whose star chemistry is the making of the movie.

Director Leslie Fenton’s only fairly imaginative and little more than merely average 1948 crime action adventure film Saigon again pairs the sizzling hit team of Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake from a trio of five-star classic film noir thrillers The Glass Key (1942), This Gun for Hire (1942) and The Blue Dahlia (1946). Their star chemistry is the making of the movie.

Alan Ladd and Wally Cassell play Saigon-based US air force pilots Major Larry Briggs and Sergeant Pete Rocco, whose buddy Captain Mike Perry (Douglas Dick) has been given only two months to live because of a head injury.  Briggs and Rocco are determined to show Perry a final good time, but are bribed by a dodgy financial wheeler-dealer Alex Maris (Morris Carnovsky) to join a heist, and they end up in a plane with his femme fatale secretary Susan Cleaver (Veronica Lake) and a suitcase of his money.

The screenplay by P J Wolfson and Arthur Sheekman, based on a story by Julian Zimet, is routine, Fenton’s direction is mundane and many of the supporting performances fall flat. But the Paramount production by P J Wolfson is neat and gleaming, Saigon has a lot of atmosphere, and the movie is held together by Ladd-Lake team, which is still very welcome and engaging in their fourth and final pairing.

Saigon did not do as well financially as Ladd-Lake team’s first three movies but it was still a hit as the fourth most popular film at the box office in March 1948. It took $2,250,000 in US rentals.

Also in the cast are Mikhail Rasumny, Luther Adler, Luis Van Rooten, Eugene Borden, Griff Barnett, Frances Chung, Betty Bryant, Dorothy Eveleigh, Harry Wilson, William Yip, Lester Sharpe, Allan Douglas and André Charlot.

Saigon is directed by Leslie Fenton, runs 93 minutes, is produced by Paramount Pictures, is distributed by Paramount Pictures, is written by P J Wolfson and Arthur Sheekman, based on a story by Julian Zimet, is shot in black and white by John F Seitz, is produced by P J Wolfson and scored by Robert Emmett Dolan.

It was shot in late 1946 and early 1947.

Veronica Lake, born Constance Ockelman (November 14, 1922 – July 7, 1973).

Veronica Lake resumed her famous peek-a-boo bob hairstyle, which she abandoned in wartime at the request of the US Government after factory workers got their hair caught in machinery imitating it. But Lake’s career was in decline and Paramount did not renew her contract at the end of 1948. Her film career was effectively over in 1951.

Paramount abandoned a film about the Japanese occupation of Indo-China and used the title for a new story. It was conceived as an exotic adventure tale to star Alan Ladd, to follow up his hits China (1943), Two Years Before the Mast (1946) and Calcutta (1947).

Ladd and Lake became a popular pairing because, at 4 ft 11 in, she was one of the few Hollywood actresses much shorter than his 5 ft 6 in. Producer John Houseman recalled: ‘Since he himself was extremely short, he had only one standard by which he judged his fellow players: their height.’

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7123

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com