Crisis *** (1950, Cary Grant, José Ferrer, Ramon Novarro, Antonio Moreno, Signe Hasso, Paula Raymond, Leon Ames, Gilbert Roland) – Classic Movie Review 3,090

The intriguing 1950 thriller film Crisis stars Cary Grant as a renowned American neurosurgeon compelled to try to save the life of a dying South American leader (José Ferrer) with a brain tumour.

Writer-director Richard Brooks’s intriguing and offbeat 1950 American film noir thriller Crisis stars a somewhat miscast Cary Grant as a renowned American neurosurgeon compelled to try to save the life of a dying South American dictator, Raoul Farrago (José Ferrer), who urgently needs an operation to remove a brain tumour.

Brooks’s first film as director, this is a wordy but well-plotted drama. When discussions of political morality are out of the way in the screenplay, Brooks packs tension and intelligent entertainment into his yarn based on George Tabori’s short story The Doubters, first published in the magazine Today’s Woman in February 1950.

It all starts when Americans Dr Eugene Ferguson (Grant) and his wife Mrs Helen Ferguson (Paula Raymond) are travelling through Latin America for a vacation, when they inadvertently become embroiled in a revolution that breaks out, and get detained by the military and taken against their will to the dictator.

Feeling compelled to assist by his physicians’ Hippocratic Oath of ethics, Dr Ferguson trains his assistants for the tricky operation, even as he is witnessing acts of brutality by the regime, notably by Colonel Adragon (Ramón Novarro). But rebel leader Roland Gonzales (Gilbert Roland) then kidnaps Helen to force her husband into making a fatal surgical error. However, the patient’s wife Isabel Farrago (Signe Hasso) intercepts the threatening message.

This forgotten movie is helped along by an unusual, fascinating cast, including silent stars Ramon Novarro and Antonio Moreno, as well as Signe Hasso, Leon Ames, Gilbert Roland, Pedro de Cordoba, Vincente Gomez, Martin Garralaga, Teresa Celli, and Soledad Jimenez.

Crisis is directed by Richard Brooks, runs 96 minutes, is made and released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, is written by Richard Brooks, based on George Tabori’s short story The Doubters, is shot by Ray June, is produced by Arthur Freed, and is scored by Miklós Rózsa.

Release date: July 7, 1950.

Unusually for a Cary Grant movie, it flopped. Costing $1,581,000, it earned $1,403,000 at the box office, leading MGM to record a loss of $72,000.

The cast are Cary Grant as Dr Eugene Norland Ferguson, José Ferrer as Raoul Farrago, Paula Raymond as Helen Ferguson, Signe Hasso as Isabel Farrago, Ramón Novarro as Colonel Adragon, Gilbert Roland as Roland Gonzales, Leon Ames as Sam Proctor Pedro de Cordoba, Vincente Gomez, Martin Garralaga, Teresa Celli, and Soledad Jimenez.

The films of Cary Grant: All 72 Cary Grant movies.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3,090

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