User reviews

Executively produced by Howard Hughes and directed by John Farrow, His Kind of Woman seems to have it all. It has a great cast under more than competent direction with a good, interesting, and inventive script. The film tells about gangster Raymond Burr, deported from the country, planning on using drifter Robert Mitchum's identity. Mitchum is flown down to a resort for the wealthy in Mexico awaiting further instructions after having been given $5,000 as a down payment on $50,000. Mitchum goes but is very curious as to what he has to do for so much dough. On his way he meets with sultry Jane Russell(Hughes's squeeze - and a LOT at that to squeeze!) who is trying to endear herself to hammy actor Vincent Price. The film really does a good job with the characterizations of all the major and minor characters. Mitchum is rock solid in his role. Russell is just beautiful and believable in her role. Tim Holt, Jim Backus, and the rest of the cast do very well. Burr plays one mean gangster. But it is Price who steals the film(for me). The first 3/4's go quite smoothly with Mitchum wondering what is going on with waiting for instructions and getting close to Russell. Price gives the film an energy boost though when he starts to play the real HAM actor in the final fourth of the film. No actor I know can be as hammy and that good as Vincent Price can. He aids Mitchum with an aplomb of such audacity and rhetoric(quoting the Bard on several occasions) of such depth and exaggeration as to make his role almost camp. But his hammy performance works well with the tension of Mitchum's plight with Burr. Director Farrow does a very nice job pacing the action in the film and adding humour here and there. Russell almost disappears from the end - but what's a girl to do wearing a dress she is barely able to walk in when action is needed. His Kind of Woman is one of those classic Noir type films with a great cast that should have your complete attention. Afterall when all is said and done: Robert Mitchum playing the leading man, Jane Russell wearing low-cut gowns, good vs. evil conflict, Howard Hughes production, character actor Jim Backus, and Vincent Price hamming it up as only he can - PRICELESS!

The first half of the movie is classic noir with an ensemble cast of interesting characters that seem to be plucked from an Agatha Christie novel. The second half morphs into an entertaining spoof reminiscent of the Pink Panther movies.

Robert Mitchum plays a gambler down on his luck who is lured into a shady deal at an exclusive Mexican resort hotel. Mitchum does his usual thing and swaggers around the set exuding machismo and testosterone, gets beaten up a few times, and enters into a romantic relationship with the ravishing Jane Russell -- who spices up the plot with a tight, slinky dress that looks like it was sprayed onto her voluptuous figure.

The tone changes with the appearance of Vincent Price, who steals the second half of the movie as a goofy swashbuckling B-movie star on vacation. Raymond Burr delivers a convincing performance as a sinister crime boss whose sadistic thugs keep beating up Mitchum, who is splendidly bare-chested for the rest of the movie.

Mitchum is finally rescued by Price -- who takes advantage of the mayhem to live out his lunatic fantasies -- and a heroic posse of intrepid hotel guests and cowardly Mexican cops. There is some terrific dialog, like this sparkling gem between Mitchum and Price:

Mitchum: "I'm too young to die. How about you?" Price: "Too well-known." Mitchum: "Well, if you do get killed, I'll make sure you get a first rate funeral in Hollywood, at Grafman's Chinese Theater." Price: "I already had it. My last picture died there..."

The direction and cinematography are first rate with good performances by the entire cast, especially Price, who literally goes off the deep end quoting Shakespeare in his hilarious attempt to rescue Mitchum. The plot is schizophrenically twisted and gives the movie a rather insane quality. Well worth the price (!) of admission.

We have watched this movie several times.

The first time was simply because this movie stars Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell.

Every viewing after that is because of Vincent Price.

Price doesn't just steal a scene: he steals the entire movie,

If you've never seen this film, you're in for a treat.

If you have previously seen it, then you know what I mean: watch it again for Vincent Price.

HIS KIND OF WOMAN, the first of two pairings of RKO's resident 'tough guy', Robert Mitchum, and it's major sex symbol, Jane Russell (the near-classic MACAO would follow, a year later), is such a wonderful, convoluted 'film noir' spoof that it is amazing that it has never appeared on video. Broadly funny, and a more than a bit surreal, the tale of down-and-out gambler Mitchum 'hired' to travel to a remote Mexican resort to provide a 'body' so that a notorious gangster (Raymond Burr, sleekly villainous) can feign his death and return to the U.S., is action-packed, and has been described as "Bogie and Bacall on Steroids'!

A great deal of the success of the John Farrow-directed film is due to the inspired casting of Vincent Price as a ham actor who gets to 'live out' his celluloid life, aiding Mitchum. Price quotes Shakespeare, critiques his performance, and is amazed by his own heroics, and he has never been funnier, on screen.

An excellent supporting cast, including Tim Holt, Charles McGraw, Marjorie Reynolds, Paul Frees (the famous Hollywood 'voice' actor, actually seen, for a change), and Jim Backus contribute to the on screen mayhem, and Russell sings "Five Little Miles From San Berdoo", one of her more memorable 50s numbers.

From the opening scene, as Burr, exiled in Italy, listens to a short-wave radio broadcast of his successful career as an American crime kingpin ("Where is my money?" he demands, as an estimate of his revenue is quoted), to the brawling climax with Mitchum, aboard his yacht, as Price attempts a rescue, HIS KIND OF WOMAN is pure escapism, at it's best.

Here's hoping that a DVD edition may soon be released!

A broke California gambler is paid thousands to travel to a resort in Mexico and meet someone who'll instruct him on what comes next. The plot is initially quite muddled and does not become clear until about halfway through. It starts as a film noir, turns into a romantic comedy, and finishes with furious action. Russell is a sultry presence and she and Mitchum have good chemistry. However, Price steals the film in a hilarious turn as a hammy Hollywood actor. The action scenes are not convincing. The bad guys take forever to aim their guns, allowing Mitchum and Price adequate time to react. There is also a ridiculously protracted scene where bad guys try to stick a needle into Mitchum.

The central character of `His Kind of Woman' is Dan Milner, a down-on-his luck gambler, who is persuaded by local villains to undertake a mysterious assignment that involves his travelling to a luxury Mexican holiday resort. On arriving there, Miler meets and falls for Lenore, the beautiful mistress of the famous actor Mark Cardigan. Lenore is hoping to marry Cardigan after he has obtained a divorce from his wife; he, however, is having second thoughts after being warned by his agent that a divorce would be bad for his clean-cut image. As the film progresses, the reason why Milner has been lured to the resort becomes clear; the man behind the scheme is Nick Ferraro, an Italian gangster who has been deported from the USA for his criminal activities. Ferraro wants to return without attracting the attention of the US authorities, and is hoping to do so using Milner's passport, having first disposed of Milner himself and undergone plastic surgery to make himself look like the dead man.

In a way, the film can be seen as three films in one. The opening scenes are shot in the dark, menacing film noir style. (Robert Mitchum appeared in a number of films of this type around this period). When Milner arrives in the resort the mood becomes lighter, and the film resembles more one of those `sophisticated' comedies about divorce and adultery that were the nearest that the fifties got to sex comedies. When the villains arrive and the nature of their plans becomes clear, the mood of the film changes again. It does not, however, revert to the dark mood of the opening scenes, but rather resembles a comedy action-thriller as Milner and his allies (principally Cardigan) try to thwart Ferraro and his designs.

Despite these shifts from one style of film-making to another, the film hangs together reasonably well. The real star performance comes from Vincent Price as Cardigan, the sort of `luvvie' actor who overacts as much in real life as he does in the swashbuckling roles for which he has become famous, and whose conversation is enlivened by frequent resort to Shakespearean or pseudo-Shakespearean language. Cardigan is delighted to be caught up in a real crime drama, as it gives him a chance to act out his on-screen persona for real. (I found myself wondering if his character was based on Errol Flynn). Although he is at times outshone by Price, Mitchum succeeds in making Milner a likeable hero despite his rather seedy past. Jane Russell was not the greatest of actresses, but here she brings the necessary touch of glamour and sex-appeal to the part of Lenore. There are, as other reviewers have pointed out, holes in the plot, but given that this is light-hearted entertainment, played as much for laughs as for thrills, these should not trouble the viewer too much. Not a classic, but still very enjoyable for all that. 7/10.

In Lee Server's biography about Robert Mitchum the recounting of the making of His Kind of Woman could actually be the basis of an interesting film itself.

Jane Russell of course was the personal creation of Howard Hughes and when Hughes bought RKO Studio, Robert Mitchum was his number one male star. It was only natural that Hughes seek to team them and in fact they do go well together.

But Howard Hughes filmed this thing essentially three times with three different actors playing villain Nick Ferraro a Hollywoodized version of Lucky Luciano. First it was Howard Petrie, then Robert Wilkie, and finally Raymond Burr before Hughes got a Ferraro he liked.

Besides that the original film had few laughs in it and Hughes did get a good streak of inspiration when he hired Vincent Price as the film was being re-shot for the second time and integrated scenes with him into the plot. Price plays a Hollywood swashbuckling movie star, shades of Errol Flynn, who really steals the film from both stars. It's a part that calls for Price to overact outrageously and he does so. His Kind of Woman is worth seeing for him alone.

The basic story has drifter/gambler Robert Mitchum being persuaded with money and other less gentle means to go to a resort located in Baja, California. Of course who's ultimately hired him is our gangster villain Burr and let us say that His Kind of Woman may have been the inspiration for Faces Off with John Travolta and Nicholas Cage a few years ago.

Tim Holt makes a brief appearance here as a Federal cop who warns Mitchum of what is in store for him and gets killed for his trouble. Holt was starring in B westerns for RKO and occasionally doing other film appearances like this one. When he went to war back in the mid Forties, RKO looked around for another replacement to be its B western hero and Mitchum got his first big break and his first starring role. But irony of ironies, Mitchum moved on to bigger and better things and Holt kept grinding out B films that were good, but way beneath his talent.

Other assorted familiar movie faces like Charles McGraw, Marjorie Reynolds, Jim Backus, and Alberto Morin are in His Kind of Woman and give it a comfortable feel.

His Kind of Woman is one of the great noir films ever done, even if it had to be shot over and over to get it right by Mr. Hughes's lights.

This flick was entertaining enough but in the end was exactly what you expect from a Howard Hughes production - a mismanaged laugher that tries to be Out of the Past, stumbles over some unintentional comedy midway through and goes with it with fearless gusto. Vincent Price's character, like Jane Rusell and Jim Backus' characters, is a superfluous ornament padding out the incredibly empty plot once Mitchum arrives in Mexico. But then, as though the director(s) got bored with the script, he gets the green light to chew the scenery with a funnier than hell bit of flamboyant goofiness, rescuing Mitchum, but not quite the picture.

This starts out quite well. Nicely directed noir in the vein of Out of the Past. Nothing indicates a tongue in cheek about face for the first hour. But by the first hour is over you're almost asleep because you don't know the point of the story anymore than Mitchum does. He strolls around the resort bumping into people who have nothing at all really important to do with anything, then finally meets Charles McGraw who only spells out a small piece of what his mission is. Then it's back to more tedious romantic interludes with Jane Russell who is there strictly for the marquee value.

The pacing is dreadful after about 35 minutes, plot holes abound, and the film is overlong no matter which way you slice it. Good performances from all involved keep it watchable, but no one can deny the plot is a mess. A real schizophrenic 2 hours. But some kind of cult classic no doubt and definitely worth a look.

Noir comedy adventures starring Robert Mitchum are a Hollywood rarity; especially this is true when the storyline is a good straight mystery to begin with adding fine touches of first-rate satirical comedy. He and Jane Russell, beautifully teamed as an adventurous tough-guy and a brave saloon singer are very smooth together, in a movie where Vincent Price supplies many of the laughs, and everything works as effortlessly as a wave crashing onto a Mexican beach's sands. The plot line is innately interesting. A gambler played by powerful Raymond Burr ensnares Mitchum by wrecking his enterprises. He then pays him to come to work for him. Object: to get back into the US from which he was deported as a crime boss--as a dead Mitchum, using his papers, etc. But where does Jane Russell fit into the plot? The joker in the deck is Price as a ham motion picture star who jumps at the chance to play a death-defying adventurer, and ends becoming a hero. The best moment in the film comes as Price and a mountainous cowardly deadpan brother-in-law of the Police Chief start off in a small boat overloaded with help for Mitchum--and slowly sink like a stone. But the battle on a boat is finally won, Price is thrilled to be wounded, Mitchum gets Russell and all comes out favorably in the end. The film was finished by Richard Fleischer with Howard Hughes after John Farrow had shot it already. Leigh Harline provided the music, Albert D'Agostino the inspired art direction. A very stylish B/W film all in all, with a leaven of comedy. The pace is surprisingly good, the gambling joint depicted very believably and the intricate storyline by Gerald Drayson Adams and Frank Fenton, Jack Leonard and others, holds together amazingly. This film was an enjoyable experience for many viewers when it was first released; a sultry romance, played by believable leads, added to the pluses. Mitchum and Russell are fine. Others in the huge cast include Charles McGraw, Tim Holt, Marjorie Reynolds, Jim Backus, Philip Van Zandt and many more, some familiar faces. A most enjoyable romp and a surprisingly good mystery.

This brilliant and mind-boggling film noir might be more properly called an anti-noir, doing for the crime movie what 'The Missouri Breaks' would do for the Western. It's not every noir hero who both offers marriage guidance AND does his own ironing.

'His Kind of Woman' is, in fact, three movies. It starts off as a fairly straight film noir, although its poker-faced pastiche of 'Out of the Past' is a little TOO poker-faced. Then, when the hero goes to Mexico to meet the other characters, the plot stops dead and enters narrative limbo, in a kind of noir precursor to Bunuel's 'The Exterminating Angel': Six Noir Characters In Search Of A Plot.

Then lunacy truly takes hold, as the plot eventually arrives, and Vincent Price, playing a barmy ham actor, takes over from Mitchum (magnificent as ever, baffled and goaded by a plot even less alert than he!) as the presiding spirit, and turns a moody thriller into the giddiest farce, where all the unpleasant aspects of film noir (fatalism, misogyny) are happily overturned. Proof that genre-busting didn't begin with Melville or Godard.

People and Critics (even those that are People) Seem to Like this Train Wreck for the Sum of its Parts. There is Some Great Noir Dialog and Interesting Shading to the Film, but the Plot and Tone has More Cleavage than Jane Russell.

It is Sliced Off Here and There, Cut with a Meat Cleaver, Inserting Non Sequiturs and Jarring Scenes that Make No Sense and Further Make the Heavy Plot Incomprehensible and Awkward.

Robert Mitchum Stays in His Film-Noir Persona with a Sharp Tongue and Cynical Attitude and Jane Russell is On Display. Vincent Price was Inserted as the Oddball Actor and then More Insertion as a Shakespearean Speech Maker. It is Funny, Individually, but when Paired with the Violent and Sadistic Raymond Burr Scenes, the Addition May Bring Notice but its Not a Good Fit.

There are Nazi-Drugs and Close-Ups of Veins Waiting for Needles, Beatings with Belt Buckles Intercut with Price in Flowing Cape, Hamming it Up and Spouting Quotes and Barbs and the Film Collapses into a Surreal Slapstick Composite with Film-Noir.

Overall, Worth a Watch for the First Two Acts, the Good Snappy Patter (at least in the first half), the Good Supporting Cast along with Mitchum, and to See Just How Much Damage from a Meddling Howard Hughes Could Cause.

This is an odd but entertaining film.

Don't take any of the story too seriously -- the film seems to be a satire of classic cliches including a slick but really, really evil villain vs. the crude but sort-of worthy hero. I don't want to spoil it for you, but it does have a happy ending which should come as no surprise. The real treat of the film is Price mocking himself as a B-picture actor who gets a chance to be heroic and plays it for all the melodrama it's worth.

HIS KIND OF WOMAN is an off-beat noir flick featuring the unmissable teaming up of two Hollywood legends, Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell. Mitchum plays a down-on-his-luck gambler who's paid a substantial amount of money to take a year-long trip to Mexico in order to help out an associate. He soon arrives at a resort populated by bizarre characters, including a wannabe actor, and discovers that he's involved in a plot surrounding a kingpin with aspirations to return to the USA.

The set-up of the story is fairly bog standard, but this film really hits its stride in the second half. Mitchum reported that the story was made up as they went along, but this gives it some of its quirky charm. Basically there are a bunch of characters at a sprawling resort, half of them being villains and the other half the good guys, and they constantly interact and throw insults at one another.

Mitchum is on good physical form here, especially when he's stripped and shows his mettle in the latter stages of the production. The voluptuous Russell is underutilised and only appears in a handful of scenes. Raymond Burr is a typically imposing character, but the real scene stealer is Vincent Price as the actor; he ends up taking over the movie and providing a ton of comic relief as he quotes various lines constantly. It's a neat foreshadowing of his later role in THEATRE OF BLOOD and it made the film for me.

In Naples, Italy, crime boss Nick Ferraro (Raymond Burr) needs to get back into the US but he is a wanted man. He finds a patsy in professional gambler Dan Milner (Robert Mitchum) who is maneuvered into taking a mysterious $50k year-long job at a Mexican resort. He falls for fellow traveler singer Lenore Brent (Jane Russell). At the resort, he finds various guests including actor Mark Cardigan (Vincent Price).

It's a cool crime mystery. It has some great actors and screen legends. Jane Russell has never been hotter. Mitchum is the perfect lead. Around the halfway point, I realize what the reveal is going to be. There is one line early on which goes way too far. It's like a flashing neon sign pointing to the eventual reveal. There are other ways to add to the mystery but I'm fine with not doing them. This is a fun noir premise and it has cool actors pulling it off.

This is a movie that should not have worked for me. I have never been a big fan of director John Farrow and the principal cast didn't impress me very much. Macho types like Robert Mitchum always seem to be trying to prove something. I never thought Jane Russell was all that sexy - too intimating for me. Vincent Price, and other super sophisticates like Hurd Hatfield and Zachary Scott just bored me.

The plot is complicated. A deported gangster wants to get back into the USA. He devises this scheme to lure Robert Mitchum to a Mexican resort in order to kidnap him, adopt his identity with the help of his gang of cutthroats and a crooked ex-Nazi plastic surgeon, and dispose of him. The feds get wind of the scheme and wise the hero up. Vincent Price plays a ham actor who, after being a fake all his life, decides to get real and try to rescue him. Russell is a round heels who was making a play for the big time with Price only to fall in love with Robert Mitchum. There are flaws in this movie. There is something illogical in torturing Mitchum to get him to cooperate in his own destruction. The idea of spending eternity trying to inject a drug into him that will make him forget seems like an extreme waste of time when they could have just as easily cut his throat or strangled him. But all that aside:

Watching Vincent Price recite lines from his movies as he launches his rescue mission, shoots the bad guys, and generally plays the hero is something not to be missed. There are even references to some of Hollywood folklore. He quotes the line attributed to one of the moguls (Sam Goldwyn or Harry Cohn I think): "If you want to send a message, call Western Union". There may not be a message in this movie, but boy is it great drama and great fun. For me this movie is all about Vincent Price. He showed a genuine flair for comedy in this movie and carried the picture.

The plot for this Robert Mitchum is an odd one. Dan (Mitchum) is a professional gambler whose life is suddenly a mess. It seems that someone is deliberately setting him up and making it impossible for him to accept a strangely vague assignment. Some gangsters (obviously the ones who sent him up) want him to go to a resort in Baja, Mexico and just wait...but for WHAT or WHO they won't tell him! Considering he doesn't have a lot of choice, Mitchum goes--where he meets all sort of oddballs--such as a woman pretending to be rich (Jane Russell), an obvious bit of muscle (Charles McGraw) and a hammy actor (Vincent Price). And, after being there for a while, he and the fake rich lady start to fall for each other...hard. So what's to become of this odd melange? See the film for yourself!

"His Kind of Woman" is a great example of a film where the dialog is so snappy that the plot itself is secondary. Now this does NOT mean the plot is bad--the film is very well-written, as the WHAT and WHY turn out to be pretty interesting. But when Mitchum talks, he is the ultimate in 50s cool--with a wonderful world-weary style and sarcasm that sound, at times, like Bogart of the 1940s. In addition, his scenes with Russell are great--with a nice mixture of romance, sarcasm and heat! In addition, watch Price's character--he becomes VERY interesting as the film progresses. For lovers of Noir--or just a good film--this movie is well worth your time.

By the way, if you've seen this film and "Key Largo", you'll probably see a lot of similarities. Now I am not saying that one film is a copy of the other or that it inspired the other--just that I saw some parallels.

"His Kind of Woman" may well be the longest "film noire" feature. Running at 120 minutes (it was cut from a longer running time), it's at least 30 minutes longer than most films of this genre. Perhaps the fact that it was a Howard Hughes production may explain it.

The story has down and out gambler Dan Milner (Robert Mithum) being approached with a proposition that could make him a cool $50,000. He isn't told what he will have to do to earn this money only that he will have to leave the country for a year. He is told to go to a Mexican resort called Morro's Lodge where he will be given further instructions. On the way he meets the gold digging Lenore Brent (Jane Russell) who as it turns out is also heading for the lodge to try and snare rich hammy movie star Mark Cardigan (Vincent Price).

Milner doesn't find out what he is supposed to do until the film is half over. Federal Immigration agent Bill Lusk (Tim Holt) informs him that deported gangster Nick Ferraro (Raymond Burr) will be assuming his identity in order to gain re-entry to the USA.

The first and final third of the film move along quite nicely, although the middle portion tends to be too long. The elements of "film noire" are all present i.e. dark shadows, high ceilings, gritty close ups, night scenes etc. Missing however, is the usual "femme fatale" who usually appears in these films to destroy the hero. Russell's character isn't really a "femme fatale" in the noire sense, she's more of a "soldier of fortune". In 1951 Hollywood they had to clean up her act, so they go to great lengths to inform us that she is really a "good girl".

The film had been mostly completed under the direction of John Farrow with Robert J. Wilke playing the gangster Ferraro when Howard Hughes intervened. He brought in a new director, Richard Fleischer, and re cast the role of Ferraro with Raymond Burr. They then re-shot all of Ferraro's scenes with Burr and the ending climax. Much of the violence in the first two thirds of the film is off screen. Not so with the ending. Mitchum has to endure a brutal beating at the hands of Anthony Carouso as well as, an almost injection of a substance that will turn him into a vegetable and be fatal within a year. There are also several on screen deaths as a part of the climax where Price and company board Ferraro's yacht.

This film boasts an excellent cast. Mitchum is the sleepy eyed hero who really doesn't know what's going on but, he does get to take his shirt off. Russell although very beautiful, is merely window dressing here. In fact she gets locked in a closet and misses the entire climax of the film. It seems that the producers were most interested in covering up her ample cleavage to appease the censors. Price steals the film as the hammy actor. His frequent quoting of lines from Shakespeare and over the top performance is quite amusing.

Also in the cast is Charles McGraw (what would a "film noire" be without McGraw), Marjorie Reynolds as Price's estranged wife, Jim Backus as a gambler, Philip Van Zandt as Morro the owner of the lodge and John Mylong as Ferarro's creepy doctor Krafft.

It's interesting to note that Mitchum was signed in 1944 to take over Tim Holt's RKO "B" western series while the latter was in the service. Mitchum actually made two films in the series before graduating to "A" level features with "The Story of G.I. Joe" (1945). Holt returned to the series in 1947 and was still working in it when this film was made.

I agree with the positive reviews here, this is one of my favorite movies.

Instead of rehashing what has already been said, I'd like to point out the film is also worth watching for the sets and decor. I don't believe I have seen quite the same look anywhere else but it is one I find very appealing. I think anyone interested in a retro tropical (almost Tiki-like) look will find "His Kind of Woman" to be a source of inspiration.

I really hope it is released soon on DVD in a widescreen format, preferably with additional materials.

John Farrow and Richard Fleisher co-directed this odd film noir semi-spoof that stars Robert Mitchum as hard-luck gambler Dan Milner, who is used by deported gangster Nick Ferraro(played by Raymond Burr) in an elaborate scheme to re-enter the country. Dan is sent to a posh California resort, where he meets Lenore Brent(played by Jane Russell). There is a mutual attraction, but Nick's plans take precedence, as Dan is unsure of who he can trust, or just how he fits in with the big picture. Vincent price is amusing as a ham actor who gets in on the action, but this film is fatally overlong and too self-involved to succeed.