Where Danger Lives (1950)

Too much of everything

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

I tried to like this movie and I know it's an old movie but, it really was horrible. A waste of film, actors, lighting etc.. When movie started of pretty good for the first 30 min then hit rock bottom was not realistic . . Really wish I could get my time back..

Film noir plots in which a fall guy gets framed by a femme fatale are not exactly rare but what distinguishes this movie from other similar ones is the way in which the victim's personal road to hell is depicted as a nightmare. The respectable man's normally good judgement deserts him when he becomes infatuated by an attractive woman and later, the effects of alcohol and concussion further impair his powers of reasoning. The disorientation and confusion that follow make his predicament increasingly worse as he experiences the kind of illogicality and loss of control that are common in dreams and feels himself being helplessly propelled towards an uncertain destiny.This sense of everything being off-kilter is also reflected elsewhere in the movie as the femme fatale is mentally unbalanced, the people that the couple meet when they're on the run are extremely eccentric and a whole series of wonderfully off-balance visual compositions are also featured.At the end of a long shift in a San Francisco hospital, hard-working Dr Jeff Cameron (Robert Mitchum) attends to an attempted suicide case. The patient is a young woman known simply as Margo (Faith Domergue) who recovers quickly and is soon discharged. Mysteriously, neither Margo or the man who brought her to the hospital disclose any other details of their identities or addresses but shortly after, Jeff receives a note from his patient containing her address. In an attempt to ensure that she doesn't try to commit suicide again, he visits her mansion and she gives him an account of why she tried to kill herself. Although he already has a regular girlfriend, Jeff continues to see Margo and falls in love with her.When Margo tells Jeff that she's got to accompany her very old father to Nassau the next day, he decides to meet Mr Frederick Lannington (Claude Rains) in the hope of changing his mind and in order to overcome his nerves, fortifies himself with a number of strong drinks. At the mansion, the young doctor tells Mr Lannington that he's in love with Margo and is shocked to be told that Margo is actually the old man's wife who married him for his money. Disgusted by this revelation, Jeff leaves the mansion but then goes back in after hearing Margo scream.Lannington had apparently ripped a earring out of one of Margo's ears and then hits Jeff with a poker before the younger man knocks his attacker out. Jeff is perpetually shaken and unsteady after this incident and after going to the bathroom to freshen up, returns to find that Lannington is dead. Margo persuades him that the police will be suspicious of the circumstances under which her husband died and so the couple go on the run together. Their journey to the Mexican border proves to be difficult and hazardous as Jeff realises he's suffering from concussion and they also get swindled by a whole succession of unscrupulous people.Robert Mitchum and Claude Rains are so good in their roles that they easily outshine everyone else in the cast and make the whole production far better than it might otherwise have been. The growing tension and paranoia that prevails during the couple's road trip is expertly created and maintained and their experiences of feeling trapped and disorientated are also strongly emphasised by the movie's wonderful cinematography and the use of some terrific low-angle shots. "Where Danger Lives" is extremely enjoyable and some of its twists are top class.

Film-noir wasn't all about amazing masterpieces by Orson Welles, John Huston and Alfred Hitchcock. The genre is full of b-class stories from which the most remembered ones are by Edgar G. Ulmer and Joseph H. Lewis. Robert Mithcum was a big star of these b-class noir films, but he wasn't a bad actor at all. He made on impressive performance in a very good film-noir, which wasn't even close to a b-class movie, Out of the Past (1947) by Jacques Tourneur. Mitchum is also remembered for Angel Face (1952) also a film-noir. Moral complexity, outlaws, dangerous women and desperate men were the trademarks of the genre, which can all be found is this commercial - mostly made for entertainment - film by John Farrow, who directed a few other film-noirs as well such as Calcutta (1947), The Big Clock (1948), Night Has A Thousand Eyes (1948) and His Kind of Woman (1951).The direction by Farrow is at times very conventional and he accidentally makes unintentional comedy in a few scenes. The story gets going when Jeff Cameron, a doctor (an unusual role for Mitchum) sees a suicide patient at his department. The following day he gets a suspicious note from the woman and is asked to meet her at an apartment. Eventually Jeff falls in love with the woman and gets framed for a murder. The rest of the film shows the running away of Jeff and her lover.Running away from the law was also a very common subject for film-noir. Anthony Mann's Desperate (1947) and Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) probably being the most remembered ones. Running away always meant something more than just the concrete escape. In Hitchcock's Spellbound John is running away from the police, but also from his subconsciousness. In Where Danger Lives Jeff (Mitchum) is running away from the law and the difficulty of stable life.To my mind Where Danger Lives was a very well made film-noir. It is a very interesting film for all of those interested in film-noir and history of cinema, but it is also a treat for those who enjoy an entertaining thriller every now and then. Even that Mitchum's performance isn't the best one could find it has its own greatness - something similar that Vincent Price has. An entertaining common film-noir.

Legendary actor Robert Mitchum (1917-1997) is perhaps best known for his work in the film noir genre, including classics like Out of the Past (1947) and The Night of the Hunter (1955). The 1950 road movie Where Danger Lives, directed by John Farrow, is not bad either, even though it does not fully reach the atmosphere and tension of the very best noirs out there.The plot follows the traditional noir pattern (a man reluctantly facing increasing adversities and paranoia under a woman's influence) rather faithfully. A well-liked but not very well-off doctor named Jeff Cameron (Mitchum) helps to save the life of a beautiful female patient named Margo Lannington (Faith Domergue) after her suicide attempt. She invites him to her home to thank him and the two quickly fall in love, but she appears to have many secrets, starting with the man she introduces as her father (the great Claude Rains). After an unfortunate accident, Jeff finds himself and Margo heading towards Mexico while on the run from the law and a crippling head injury slowly eating away his ability to think and act clearly.The plot itself provides no major surprises; instead, the special touch of the movie comes from the effect of Cameron's concussion which causes him to perceive everything more or less hazily. Mitchum always had a certain "sleepy" look to his face in the first place, but this extra twist makes him come across as a borderline sleepwalker, a style that I am not sure I like even though it is justified in the context of the story. The performance of Domergue as the femme fatale Margo is pretty good though; she shows decent range growing from worried to controlling and ultimately desperate, even though the big revelation regarding her past doesn't feel highly convincing. Many of the supporting actors do good jobs as well, such as Tol Avery as a shady car salesman "Honest Hal" and Philip Van Zandt as a touring cabaret show manager and human trafficker Milo DeLong.What I think is the biggest flaw in an otherwise adequate movie is the lack of tightening tension and paranoid atmosphere, the staples of film noir. Jeff and Margo encounter numerous cops who inadvertently cause great stress especially to him, but somehow the uneasy atmosphere is not conveyed to the audience as powerfully as in many other films – probably due to the alienation caused by Jeff's head injury that Mitchum portrays so relentlessly. The dramatic finale is the only scene where the suspense becomes truly concrete, although many earlier parts are entertaining in a different way, for example the "Wild West Whiskers Week" festival in a small Arizona town.Notwithstanding my complaints above, in the end I liked Where Danger Lives alright. The creeping sickness approach brings an interesting aspect to the storytelling, even if it also hurts the mood at points. The camera work and the black and white visuals are fine too, so noir fans have few reasons to not check the movie out. At only 82 minutes it is perfectly watchable for more casual film buffs as well.