Golden Salamander (1950)

Very Cool!!!

Sadly Over-hyped

From my favorite movies..

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

This is the kind of mediocrity that makes Old Mother Riley look cutting edge. There's barely one believable frame in the whole movie. For reasons clearly meant to 1) mislead and 2) generate interest the opening sequence finds Trevor Howard driving along what appears to be a coast road in a storm. He turns out to be an archaeologist. So much for suspense. He puts up at a sinister inn where a shabbily dressed Wilfrid Hyde White clearly having been frightened by Dooly Wilson in Casablanca is playing a jaunty version of Clopin Clopant on a beat-up upright ignored by several deadbeats led by Herbert Lom with drinks being dispensed by a young Anouk Aimee as if at Finishing School in Lausanne. It doesn't get any better. Unbelievably Howard really IS what it says on the tin and NOT a British agent, undercover cop, intrepid investigative reporter or anything the slightest bit interesting and the fact that he stumbles onto a gun-running syndicate is more embarrassing than sinister. If you like thrillers sans thrills this is for you and if you mistake Miles Malleson for Claude Rains or even Louis Renault then you got trouble, my friend, right here in Waterfront City.

What is an interesting plot conceptually ends up dropping down to mediocrity thanks to moments of slowness that seem to make the film drag on to eternity. Obviously, the "Golden Salamander" is a take-off on the legend of the "Maltese Falcon" with the mysterious statue of the tiny lizard (enlarged to iguana size) providing the film's theme of "The best way to conquer evil is to confront it". That's the case for the British Trevor Howard, in Northern Africa for "private business" and his sudden involvement in a ring of thieves lead by the nasty Herbert Lom. Long before the shout of "Clouseau!" would drive him to insanity, Lom was already playing film heavy's in British thrillers like this, and for a side-kick, he gets none other than a very thin Wilfred Hyde White, resembling Percy Kilbride, who is the first person to encounter Howard when he arrives at the inn run by Anouck Aimee, simply billed by her first name.There's a lot of insinuation that certain sleazy characters aren't as bad as they seem or that those who seem nice or on the side of the law really aren't. While this provides some potentiality for clever plot twists, some of those moments aren't clarified for plot line purposes and the results are somewhat confusing. An extensive chase sequence towards the end of the film seems to go on forever and leads into more plot developments which extends the film's running time when it seemed as if it was already running out of plot. Ronald Neame's direction certainly isn't to blame and neither are the performances who do their best to enliven the action. Compared to American romantic heroes of the time, Howard is certainly a unique leading man and manages to stay charming even if he doesn't fall into the same league as the crop of stars doing similar adventure yarns in Hollywood films. What ultimately decreases overall interest in the film is the excessive use of moments of action with little to no sound which really proves that sometimes, silence is deafening.

When I saw the cast for this, I figured the movie would either be very good or awful. Luckily, it was the former. Good acting, great cinematography, editing and a convincing character path make this movie a real classic. Of course there are the "exotic" Arabs, but their depiction is not as offensive as in most films of its era. The somewhat dazed performance by Anouk Aimee leads one to believe that she either had a lot of trouble with the English language, or overplayed her depressive qualities. The boar hunt sequence brings to mind the conclusion of the book "The Alexandria Quartet." Aside from these minor quibbles, I recommend The Golden Salamander to anyone with an interest in character development, intrigue, and film noir that isn't about people unjustly accused of criminal action, innocent people led into same, and heists gone wrong.

With her little-girl voice and arched eyebrows, a 17-year old Anouk (Aimee) is a real attention-getter. Having her fall for the much older and plainer Trevor Howard, however, is something of a stretch. Nonetheless, it's a fascinating movie to look at even if the basic plot is unexceptional. Archaeologist Howard travels to north Africa to retrieve shipwrecked treasures that include a golden salamander. There he stumbles across a network of gun- smugglers and hooks up with the exotic Anna (Anouk) in a seedy, atmospheric café. Just who is and who isn't a part of the network generates some suspense.But the movie's strength is in the acting and the photography. Howard is superb, as usual, while Anouk manages to be both emotionally vulnerable and surprisingly accomplished in her first big part. Special mention should go to Walter Rilla for his super slick version of a gangster kingpin. He looks and acts the sinister role to a proverbial T.However, what I liked best is what the pro's call "mise-en-scene", ie. the placing of a scene. Someone in production had the great idea of filming on location, along the north African coast line. This results in a number of visually stunning compositions made all the more so by the subtle tonalities that only black& white photography can produce. Catch the romantic scene on the beach with the setting sun in deep-focus background. Color is simply too literal to capture this kind of poetic effect.The dialogue is spiced up nicely with several exotic pearls of wisdom, but what about that escape scene by the cliff which seems pretty implausible-- how did Hyde-Whyte know a sheep flock would pass at exactly the right time. Or the climax, which seems a little too tame for my liking. Nonetheless, it's one of those movies that's stayed with me over the years for reasons I can't quite pin down. I guess it's something about the authentic crowds along the Arab bazaar or the sheer poetry of that coast line stretching into the distance and beyond. Yes indeed, there's a lot to be said for the old black & white.