Saigon (1948)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Pretty Good

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Copyright 12 March 1948 by Paramount Pictures. New York release at the Paramount: 31 March 1948. U.S. release: 12 March 1948. U.K. release: 9 February 1948. Sydney release at the Prince Edward (for 4 weeks): 26 March 1948. Australian release: 22 April 1948. 8,493 feet. 94 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Air Force buddy has only two months to live, so Major Alan Ladd takes on a dubious charter flight to earn the money to show him a good time.COMMENT: This final teaming of Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake is a bit disappointing. Many of the ingredients for an exciting film are here, but the script forces Ladd to constantly take a back place in romance to Douglas Dick. Ladd has too little to do. And when the climactic action is handed over to Wally Cassell, one wonders if the producers are not trying to torpedo our hero's career. (A great stunt fall at the climax - but it's not Ladd that's made to look good).Nevertheless, the film is beautifully mounted. Seitz's photography is most attractive, sets and costumes are dazzling. Fenton's direction is immaculately smooth. No expense has been spared on crowds and atmosphere.Despite his often-relegated position on the sidelines, Ladd plays with his usual gruff vigor. Miss Lake is appropriately viperish as a vamp with both eyes on a fortune. Mr Dick is amiably weak as the buddy with too much platinum in his head. The main support players - Luther Adler as a cat-and-mouse detective, Mikhail Rasumny clerking a rundown hotel, Morris Carnovsky as a silken villain, and Eugene Borden as a philosophical if exasperated captain/engineer/steward - are one and all excellent, though Mr Cassell is perhaps just a little too bright and breezy in his stereotyped role of a girl-loving sergeant.OTHER VIEWS: Exciting thriller, played against exotic backgrounds - all brilliantly created in the studio, with convincing miniatures and almost imperceptible process screen effects. The art directors have excelled themselves here. Both sets and players are lovingly photographed by ace cameraman John F. Seitz. Director Fenton has drawn capable performances from his cast, kept the plot moving briskly and staged his action sequences with thrilling realism and drama. In all, splendid entertainment, impeccably (and expensively) produced. - J.H.R. writing as George Addison.

This movie does prove that Alan Ladd looks great in a tuxedo and would have made a great James Bond. Veronica Lake plays a secretary without a sense of humor until the last 1/3 of the film where she suddenly starts to look more like her usual sexy, peekaboo self. Only the last 1/3 of the film takes place in Saigon. The first hour is just the characters trying to get to Saigon. Weirdly, almost all the last 1/2 hour takes place in a hotel where their appears to be no Vietnamese. The movie could have been called Santa Cruz or San Diego, or any city name with as much relevance to the plot. The movie is surprisingly lacking in wit and suspense, at least until the last 20 minutes where things pick up a bit. I think the movie is just for Alan Ladd fans. The quote "This happened because it had to happen" is the best line in the movie, which tells you how bad the movie is.

I found this movie entertaining, but I think it is a mistake to compare it to "Calcutta," since they are very different in many ways. The only similarity is that they both take place in the orient. "Calcutta" is essentially-- aside from the adventure trappings -- a "whodunnit" with a surprise twist at the end, similar to both "Dead Reckoning" and "The Maltese Falcon". "Saigon," which I enjoyed for what it is, is a much less involving movie because, for one thing, there is really not that much suspense. However, the Ladd/Lake combo is always interesting to watch and the supporting actors -- in particular, Morris Carnovsky and Luis van Rooten -- I found fascinating. Whereas Paramount gave "Calcutta" a much more expensive mounting (which paid off because it actually took in more at the box office than even "The Blue Dahlia), I felt they really reduced the budget on this movie -- the hotel sets at the end being the only really expensive looking ones. recommended for Ladd/Lake fans.

Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake co-starred for Paramount in three classic films, This Gun For Hire, The Glass Key, and The Blue Dahlia. Their fourth and final film was Saigon and it doesn't rate in the category of the other three.Saigon has Ladd as a recently discharged Army Air Corps pilot who has not headed back to the USA, but hung around the Orient watching out for a buddy Douglas Dick who has had multiple surgeries due to head wounds. Dick has a platinum cranium courtesy of the war and the Army Medical Corps, but he's dying, he has maybe a month or two left.Ladd and another of his crew Wally Cassell are hanging around to make Dick's life or what's left of it, happy. For that reason they accept a flying job to Saigon, no questions asked from Morris Carnovsky who is carrying a lot of cash from shady wartime dealings and Veronica Lake. They're getting $10,000.00 for the flight.Lake and the cash get away all right, but Carnovsky is detained by the police who are firing at Ladd's plane as it is taking off. With them thinking Carnovsky is dead, the four are at liberty. Dick falls hard for the sexy Lake and Ladd wants to keep her around to make him happy in his last days. What a pal.All these elements come together in a bloody climax that I will not reveal. The idea of a story about a dying soldier was handled far better the following year by Warner Brothers in The Hasty Heart. This was also the second Alan Ladd film with a far east city title, the other being Calcutta from the year before. Although this film is better than Calcutta, it's still cut from the same routine action/adventure mold that Calcutta was taken from. And like Calcutta you would never know the problems that were happening in French IndoChina as the Viet Minh were starting their guerrilla war for independence against the French Colonial occupying power. Said power here is represented by Luther Adler who as always is giving a great performance.Veronica Lake left Paramount the following year and Alan Ladd would follow a few years after that. Too bad their screen partnership ended on a mediocre note.