Foreign Intrigue (1956)

As the only American in the movie, Robert Mitchum was the only cast member whose words I understood the entire time. The women, Genevieve Page and Ingrid Thulin, as well as a handful of male cronies, spoke in such thick accents with a lack of knowledge about proper emphasis of syllables, I could barely understand what they were saying. Then again, in a movie entitled Foreign Intrigue, what could I expect?The beginning to the movie is very interesting, but when more people come on the screen with their various accents and interpretations of the lines, my interest in the plot quickly fizzled. Robert Mitchum's millionaire employer dies suddenly, and since Bob is the one who found him in his last moments, he's become a target to police investigations and reporters' questions. Everyone seems to ask the same question: "Did he say anything before he died?" It gets a little creepy, and Bob starts to understand there's more than meets the eye to the man's death. Before long, he's pulled into plots and subplots and sub-subplots, and there's no one he can trust!You can rent this one if you want the eye candy of Robert Mitchum in Technicolor, but you'd better pay attention to more than Bob's gorgeous mug. It gets pretty complicated!

I saw Foreign Intrigue years ago and it was on a black and white set and I found the film then excruciatingly dull. Seeing it now I missed the beautiful color cinematography of French, Austrian, and Swedish locations that the film was done. They helped lift Foreign Intrigue a bit in my eyes.But not enough to raise it to some of the better films that Robert Mitchum did. At least he got a nice European tour in the making of this film.Mitchum plays a press agent who works for Jean Galland one of those international jet setters whose origins and money are a mystery. When Galland dies of a heart attack suddenly, Mitchum who was a press agent takes it on himself to investigate his former boss, especially after a variety of strange people keep asking him whether Galland had any dying last words.He's also got the late man's widow Genevieve Page who made it clear they were married in name only on his case, eying Mitchum like a rack of lamb done at the expensive steakhouse where I ate last night. The implication is quite clear that Galland was gay and Page is hot to gallop.Turns out that the late employer made his living as a blackmailer with a select clientèle of people who paid him annual tribute to keep their common dirty secret. All of them were potential fifth columnists in the USA, the UK, Switzerland, and Sweden. Mr. Galland was the Russian part of this elite group of quislings in their respective countries.Mitchum has another love interest in Ingrid Thulin the daughter of the potential Swedish collaborator who had committed suicide a few years back. And he's got one Frederick O'Brady who had orders to kill Mitchum but decides to go into business with him instead. He's a mysterious and malevolent sort.Seeing it again after decades I found Foreign Intrigue still didn't quite sustain my interest. I couldn't quite believe that the Soviets would have let this guy live and accumulate all his wealth. They were not squeamish in the slightest about eliminating Nazi collaborators.Ingrid Thulin made a few films in the English language, but mostly was queen of her native Swedish cinema. She never became the successor to Greta Garbo and Ingrid Bergman as an international star. During the making of The Four Horseman Of The Apocalypse with Glenn Ford with whom she co-starred with her Swedish accent was so thick that Angela Lansbury was called in Thulin's entire part was dubbed over. Now if it was that bad for that film, I'm wondering if this was her voice here?Nice photography attached to a not terribly convincing story is my assessment now of Foreign Intrigue.

Robert Mitchum, employee of a mysterious rich guy with a mysterious source of income, gets involved in FOREIGN INTRIGUE when he seeks out the source of his newly dead employer's seven figure lifestyle on the Riviera. Will the natural scenery of the Riviera, Sweeden and Vienna overwhelm the scenery provided by Bob's bodacious costars? This is an entertaining enough movie -- and would have been a lot better without the atrocious musical score -- but it is slumming for Mitchum, who probably took the role for the free visits to European hotspots. The main interest IS Mitchum, who acts the role in an interesting fashion. By acting, in each scene, that he just can't quite believe the mother lode of BS that he has just been handed by some suspect, spy type, cute girl, or plot development, he sort of steps aside from the move, and whispers to us that he knows this is all nonsense, but bear with him, the movie won't be too bad. And, because he does that, it really isn't.Now, frankly, this is a dead-end as an acting approach, and the cul-de-sac at the end is Roger Moore at the close of his James Bond period. But it works for this movie and this actor, where a straighter approach probably just would have failed. We should be grateful, though, that a sequel, suggested by the ending, was not produced.

I would love to know the story behind "Foreign Intrigue". After all, why would a star like Robert Mitchum agree to be in such a dull international film? Perhaps he just wanted an all expense paid vacation! All I know is that the film is clearly a dull misfire.The film begins with some rich guy dying. Oddly, again and again, strangers come up to the dead man's assistant (Mitchum) to ask him if his boss said anything as he died--as Mitchum was there with him. The man had said nothing--but why were so many people worried about what he might have said?! So, Mitchum investigates--traveling to locales from France to Sweden. Not at all surprisingly, the boss turned out to be a blackmailer and as the story unfolds, the viewer is left wondering if this movie could have been any more dull and listless--and how the writers could have done so little with the story idea. After all, apart from some nice color scenes of various pretty locations, the film has nothing to recommend it. And, surprisingly, Mitchum has very, very little personality in the film--something that is practically impossible to imagine.By the way, when Mitchum speaks French in the film, it's pretty obvious that someone is dubbing voice.