Chris (Rita Hayworth, in a return to the silver screen after years away), a beautiful dancer in a seedy Trinidad club, is forced to play the spy in a game between men, "Notorious"style, after her husband is murdered. In a new and awkward twist, her brother in law Steve (the wonderful Glenn Ford) turns up, with questions that her compromised position makes it hard to answer. A plot is uncovered, shady dealings, a love triangle, and a noirish feel to the thing. Moustache-twirling is decently covered by Alexander Scourby.
This isn't the finest ever moment for anyone involved, but it's quite poignant and interesting to look at. The reuniting of Hayworth with her "Gilda" co-star Ford hasn't quite the spark and bite of their earlier venture, and her face records the slight battering she's taken from life in the interim. This is all to the good for her character but it isn't quite synchronised; not everything she says is convincing, and sometimes her face is too much of a mask. But her dancing is as vibrant and engaging as ever, and the chemistry between her and Ford is there, thank goodness. Otherwise it would be a shame for Ford's talent and effort to be thrown away on a film that didn't deserve it.
Glenn Ford's Steve epitomises the strong man in trouble, his handsome face by turns boyish, petulant, lovestruck, brooding, aggressive. I love the way he walks into a room, shoulders first, defiantly always a man, determined to tread the straight path. When he confronts Chris at Max's birthday party, weighted under by dark jealousy, suspicion, baffled love and grief, his carefully constructed masculinity seems to me almost to tremble on the brink of collapse.
"Affair in Trinidad" has strong visual moments standing out from a slightly silly plot: the wonderfully murky, expressionist shot of Chris smoking in the thick dark of her doorway, her face just dimly lit by the cigarette she pulls on; the way Steve looks at Max and Chris at the point of their first meeting together; Steve slapping the cringing bar owner across the face with a wad of dollars; Chris in her big scene, downing a glass of champagne, then flouncing over to start up the orchestra and dance, in a desperate bid to give both Max and Steve the message they need to hear. The film is finally less than the sum of its parts but enjoyable all the same.
This isn't the finest ever moment for anyone involved, but it's quite poignant and interesting to look at. The reuniting of Hayworth with her "Gilda" co-star Ford hasn't quite the spark and bite of their earlier venture, and her face records the slight battering she's taken from life in the interim. This is all to the good for her character but it isn't quite synchronised; not everything she says is convincing, and sometimes her face is too much of a mask. But her dancing is as vibrant and engaging as ever, and the chemistry between her and Ford is there, thank goodness. Otherwise it would be a shame for Ford's talent and effort to be thrown away on a film that didn't deserve it.
Glenn Ford's Steve epitomises the strong man in trouble, his handsome face by turns boyish, petulant, lovestruck, brooding, aggressive. I love the way he walks into a room, shoulders first, defiantly always a man, determined to tread the straight path. When he confronts Chris at Max's birthday party, weighted under by dark jealousy, suspicion, baffled love and grief, his carefully constructed masculinity seems to me almost to tremble on the brink of collapse.
"Affair in Trinidad" has strong visual moments standing out from a slightly silly plot: the wonderfully murky, expressionist shot of Chris smoking in the thick dark of her doorway, her face just dimly lit by the cigarette she pulls on; the way Steve looks at Max and Chris at the point of their first meeting together; Steve slapping the cringing bar owner across the face with a wad of dollars; Chris in her big scene, downing a glass of champagne, then flouncing over to start up the orchestra and dance, in a desperate bid to give both Max and Steve the message they need to hear. The film is finally less than the sum of its parts but enjoyable all the same.