Affair in Trinidad (1952)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Vincent Sherman

Writers:

Berne Giler (story)
James Gunn (writer)

Release Date:

29 July 1952 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Film-Noir | Thriller | Musical

Plot:

Nightclub singer and her brother-in-law try to find her husband's killer.

Plot Keywords:

Trinidad | Caribbean | Seductive Dance | Intrigue | Beautiful Woman

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar.

Cast

Rita Hayworth	...	Chris Emery
Glenn Ford	...	Steve Emery
Alexander Scourby	...	Max Fabian
Valerie Bettis	...	Veronica Huebling
Torin Thatcher	...	Inspector Smythe
Howard Wendell	...	Anderson
Karel Stepanek	...	Walters
George Voskovec	...	Doctor Franz Huebling
Steven Geray	...	Wittol
Walter Kohler	...	Peter Bronec
Juanita Moore	...	Dominique
Gregg Martell	...	Olaf, Fabian's Chauffeur
Mort Mills	...	Martin, Wittol's Henchman
Ralph Moody	...	Coroner

Also Known As:

Girl from Amen Valley (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

98 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

In the time period that the story was set, America in fact maintained two naval bases in Trinidad, one at the western peninsula called Chagaramas and the other in the east of the country, called Wallerfield. They were closed in 1962, the year the country gained independence from Great Britain. There is still a lot of evidence of their presence to this day i.e., airstrips, the deep water harbor, and several still-standing buildings. Chagaramas is now host to a thriving boating industry. It is well known in the sailing world as a shelter during the hurricane season, and hundreds of yachts and private craft are anchored there every year. It is considered to be out of the Caribbean's hurricane belt.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Bronec gets run over at the airport his bags end up on the verge but in the next cut they are on the road.

Quotes:

Chris Emery: You're Steve - Domenique told me.
Steve Emery: ..and I know who you are. I read about you in the paper.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Rita Hayworth: The Columbia Lady (2000) (V)

Soundtrack:

TRINIDAD LADY

Not so hot

1952's Affair in Trinidad was an attempt by Columbia to reignite some of the heat that Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford brought to Gilda six years earlier with director Vincent Sherman drafted in to give it some of the snappy style of his Warner Bros. pictures, but with somewhat more tepid results all round (except at the box-office, where it surprisingly proved an even bigger hit). It's the kind of film you know you haven't seen before but you could swear you had so predictably familiar is the formula – tropical location, a couple of sultry musical numbers, Alexander Scourby in the George Macready role, although in this case it might be more accurate to say the Claude Rains role, since the last half of the movie is pure Notorious as Hayworth's suddenly widowed singer tries to find out just what his millionaire purveyor of stolen information is up to with those ex-Nazi scientists who are staying in his guest house. Ford often has so little to do as her suspicious brother-in-law here that you hoped they at least paid him well for his time. Hayworth is centre stage all the way, and if the choreography of her opening number is more comical than erotic she's the main reason for watching it, although there are good supporting turns from Scourby and Torin Thatcher, a not-entirely-geographically-logical MacGuffin that predates the Cuban Missile Crisis by nearly a decade and one character gets a great last line – "If you're waiting for my last words, you've heard them." Neither particularly bad or particularly good, it fills an aimless afternoon but leaves little impression in its wake.