The central character of `His Kind of Woman' is Dan Milner, a down-on-his luck gambler, who is persuaded by local villains to undertake a mysterious assignment that involves his travelling to a luxury Mexican holiday resort. On arriving there, Miler meets and falls for Lenore, the beautiful mistress of the famous actor Mark Cardigan. Lenore is hoping to marry Cardigan after he has obtained a divorce from his wife; he, however, is having second thoughts after being warned by his agent that a divorce would be bad for his clean-cut image. As the film progresses, the reason why Milner has been lured to the resort becomes clear; the man behind the scheme is Nick Ferraro, an Italian gangster who has been deported from the USA for his criminal activities. Ferraro wants to return without attracting the attention of the US authorities, and is hoping to do so using Milner's passport, having first disposed of Milner himself and undergone plastic surgery to make himself look like the dead man.
In a way, the film can be seen as three films in one. The opening scenes are shot in the dark, menacing film noir style. (Robert Mitchum appeared in a number of films of this type around this period). When Milner arrives in the resort the mood becomes lighter, and the film resembles more one of those `sophisticated' comedies about divorce and adultery that were the nearest that the fifties got to sex comedies. When the villains arrive and the nature of their plans becomes clear, the mood of the film changes again. It does not, however, revert to the dark mood of the opening scenes, but rather resembles a comedy action-thriller as Milner and his allies (principally Cardigan) try to thwart Ferraro and his designs.
Despite these shifts from one style of film-making to another, the film hangs together reasonably well. The real star performance comes from Vincent Price as Cardigan, the sort of `luvvie' actor who overacts as much in real life as he does in the swashbuckling roles for which he has become famous, and whose conversation is enlivened by frequent resort to Shakespearean or pseudo-Shakespearean language. Cardigan is delighted to be caught up in a real crime drama, as it gives him a chance to act out his on-screen persona for real. (I found myself wondering if his character was based on Errol Flynn). Although he is at times outshone by Price, Mitchum succeeds in making Milner a likeable hero despite his rather seedy past. Jane Russell was not the greatest of actresses, but here she brings the necessary touch of glamour and sex-appeal to the part of Lenore. There are, as other reviewers have pointed out, holes in the plot, but given that this is light-hearted entertainment, played as much for laughs as for thrills, these should not trouble the viewer too much. Not a classic, but still very enjoyable for all that. 7/10.
