Affair in Trinidad [DVD] [2006]

1952's Affair in Trinidad was an attempt by Columbia to reignite some of the heat that Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford brought to Gilda six years earlier with director Vincent Sherman drafted in to give it some of the snappy style of his Warner Bros. pictures, but with somewhat more tepid results all round (except at the box-office, where it surprisingly proved an even bigger hit). It's the kind of film you know you haven't seen before but you could swear you had so predictably familiar is the formula - tropical location, a couple of sultry musical numbers, Alexander Scourby in the George Macready role, although in this case it might be more accurate to say the Claude Rains role, since the last half of the movie is pure Notorious as Hayworth's suddenly widowed singer tries to find out just what his millionaire purveyor of stolen information is up to with those ex-Nazi scientists who are staying in his guest house. Ford often has so little to do as her suspicious brother-in-law here that you hope they at least paid him well for his time. Hayworth is center stage all the way, and if the choreography of her opening number is more comical than erotic she's the main reason for watching it, although there are good supporting turns from Scourby and Torin Thatcher, a not-entirely-geographically-logical MacGuffin that predates the Cuban Missile Crisis by nearly a decade and one character gets a great last line - "If you're waiting for my last words, you've heard them."

Neither particularly bad or particularly good, it fills an aimless afternoon but leaves little impression in its wake. No extras on the vanilla Region 2 PAL DVD but an acceptable black and white transfer.

Affair in Trinidad might have been a reasonably solid movie of murder and intrigue if Columbia Pictures hadn't strained so mightily to remind us of, and cash in on, Gilda. But six years have passed since that hothouse orchid bloomed. Rita Hayworth, returning to movies after four years, a survivor of two demeaning marriages, first to the ego-driven and easily bored Orson Welles and the second to the spoiled, world-class philanderer Aly Khan, looks great but no longer has that fresh, spirited quality she brought to her movies in the Forties. Glenn Ford is finally beginning to look older than a teen-ager, but all he's called on to do is to project the same melodramatic resentment he carried along with him in Gilda. For the villain, Alexander Scourby was a good actor, but there's none of the noxious, smooth danger that George Macready gave off in waves...and none of the homoerotic subtext that spiced up Gilda. All we have is Inspector Smythe's flat-footed description of Max Fabian: "He's a man who deals in international intrigue, secret information, treason...a man who's grown rich by exploiting trouble and unrest wherever they exist..." Yawn.

Chris Emery (Rita Hayworth) is a headlining entertainer in Trinidad's Carib Club. She sings, dances, and knocks `em dead when she undulates across the dance floor. Her husband, an unsuccessful painter, dies. Suicide? It looks that way, but Inspector Smythe (Torin Thatcher) is convinced it's murder. Smythe believes that Max Fabian was behind it. He arms twists Chris to get close to Fabian, who likes her a lot. Her job: Get the goods on him. This will include slimy men with German accents and devices that seem to be nuclear. During the last ten minutes we'll forget Gilda and remember Notorious. But then her husband's brother shows up from the States. Steve Emery (Glenn Ford) quickly resents how Chris is being so friendly to Max. He has no idea she's working for the police and that she has been instructed to say nothing. This three-way arrangement results in Steve showing how tough and angry he can be, in Fabian showing how cool and dangerous he can be, and in Chris showing how conflicted she can be, especially when Chris and Steve realize their love for each other. Fear not; the movie does eventually end. When Affair in Trinidad was released it was considerably more successful than Gilda had been.

Affair in Trinidad hasn't aged well. The script is no better than workmanlike. The acting, especially in the smaller parts, is basic. Even the two musical numbers Hayworth gives us, "Trinidad Lady" and "I've Been Kissed Before," seem like stuffed animals from another era. Instead of the self-aware and amusing heat of Hayworth doing "Put the Blame on Mame," here Hayworth is gorgeous and merely professional. Most of the problem is that the choreography for her is vulgar instead of being sexy.

Picture a small group of bongo-thumping Trinidadians in native dress sitting on stage amongst banana fronds. They sing, eyes rolling with delight...

"A chicky chick boom chick boom
A chicky chick boom chick boom
Announces you're in the room
With the Trinidad Lady

"A chicky chick boom chick boom
A chicky chick boom chick boom
Your ticker goes boom, boom, boom
For the Trinidad Lady..."

Even Hayworth swaying in on bare feet can't do much with material like this. Same with the movie.

Rita Hayworth in a good old pot boiler, an excellent drama with good definition and nice quality black & white photography