So much average

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

What a nothing-burger of a movie. By 1950 George Raft, who had never been much of an actor to begin with, was running out of steam and, in the fashion of the times, went to Britain and took a 'starring' role in a piece of cheese in an effort to prolong his career. When Martin Benson gets prominent billing you know you're in trouble and so it is here. Coleen Gray does what she can to inject a touch of class and manages to spread some charm over the proceedings but it's an uphill fight to extract anything at all - tension, thrills, plot - from a dull, stodgy meller that even Arthur Mullard, Alfie Bass, Victor Maddern and co would have turned their noses up at.

Gambler George Raft on a leisurely holiday on the Italian Riviera arrives at a hotel/casino where the management is really pulling out all the hospitality stops for him. The casino manager Martin Benson has even forgiven the losses of fellow American tourist Coleen Gray at the gaming tables if she'll just be friendly to Raft. Gray's friendly enough all right, but when a Mickey Finn is slipped in both their drinks, Raft and Gray wake up to find themselves wanted for the murder of a third American at the resort. That particular American Donald Stewart as it turns out was a secret service agent on the trail of some gangsters who have grabbed some nearly perfect counterfeit plates developed by the Nazis and never put in use during the war to destroy the value of American currency.I'll Get You For This also entitled Lucky Nick Cain is concerned with just how Raft and Gray get out of this jackpot. The only one they can trust for a while until they sort out the good guys from the bad guys is shoeshine boy Enzo Staiola who was prominently featured in Vittorio DeSica's The Bicycle Thief a few years earlier. By the way when you see Staiola meet Raft at the beginning of the film and offer him a shine, Raft's elevator shoes are plainly visible.The film is a British production with American stars and an Italian setting and a cast of all three countries. Maybe color would have helped as it always does in Mediterranean settings, but the film never really takes off in the action department. Raft was clearly in the B film phase of his career and this one didn't help him get out of it.

There are three draw cards to this movie: Coleen Gray is one. She's so relaxed and natural, while ageing George Raft is stiff and dull. Two: the Riviera/Italian locations are easy on the eye. Three: it's good to see Enzo Staiola (from The Bicycle Thieves) in a supporting role as a shoeshine boy. Otherwise it's another lacklustre melo/thriller, with no-one really trying hard enough to breath life or thrills into it. There's even a sequence where Mr Raft is given a chance to perform the tango (for which he had been famous a couple of decades previously), but none of the camera angles give a look at his moves; we have to imagine how graceful he is (or was) from the inadequate mid-shots. It seems George was a bit past it. British movies would often attempt a boost to international sales by importing an old Hollywood star. Usually it didn't work. The young Hollywood star works for me, and the even younger Italian neo-realist star, but George is walking through this one.

James Hadley Chase,among other writers, was well renowned for his ability to capture the readers attention from the beginning to end in all of his crime-thriller novels. That is where the difficulty sets in, can the director and crew capture the same in the movie? The story starts off with the arrival of an American gambler (Nick-George Raft) at a Mediterranean town of San Paola. Soon he gets acquainted with Kay (Coleen Gray) and finds himself framed for a murder, forcing him to go on the run with her. So far so good yet this is the turning point of the movie. Instead of going the edge of your seat 'why and who?' it turned into mediocrity. Overall, had the potential to be a great movie and could have rivaled movies like The Fugitive (1993) had a bit more suspense/tension been pumped into the screenplay and other movie making aspects.