When William Bendix plays a man named Pedro, you know there's a problem.
It's post-war. Neale (Alan Ladd) and Pedro (the aforementioned Bendix) have taken the opportunity to fly cargo from Chungking to Calcutta, and the reverse. They have to go over the Himalayas. The money is good.
Sadly, they learn that their friend Bill, who was about to be married, has been murdered in Calcutta. They are determined to find out who did it.
Neale visits his fiance (Gail Russell) and wonders how it is that she is wearing an $8,000 necklace. The two spar, and she throws him out. Neale then learns that Bill had a lot of money in the bank. Could he have been involved in smuggling?
I saw a video of this where the sound was very fuzzy. For me Gail Russell threw this film way off kilter. Consider that Calcutta was made in 1945 and not released until 1947. That means that it was made one year after Russell's debut in "The Uninvited."
This is a different woman. Her alcoholism is already affecting her. She is a nervous wreck and soft spoken, demonstrating not much of a character or personality. Also, as one of the stars of the film, she's hardly in the movie. I do not think originally it was intended to be that way.
There is a big performance by Edith King, who may know something about what happened to Bill, and probably does run a brothel. June Duprez is on hand as a beautiful club singer who has an on-again, off-again relationship with Neale.
I love Alan Ladd - handsome, tough, a strong presence in films, and I enjoy watching him no matter the movie. William Bendix is always wonderful.
However, there's not much of a story and as far as Calcutta - I maybe saw one Indian. Hollywood's idea of a foreign country was to put white people in white suits and leave it at that. Also, given what was going on in India at the time, it's never mentioned in the film.
One bit of trivia - in Calcutta, as in Saigon, the plane Ladd is flying loses its right engine. As a result, cargo has to be dumped from the plane to lighten the load. Identical situation. And always the right engine.
