Macao (1952) saw the collaboration of two great Hollywood directors, Josef von Sternberg and Nicholas Ray, and two of the era's most popular stars, Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell. The film follows three strangers who arrive in the Chinese port of Macau and accidentally become involved in a war between the criminal underworld and the American authorities who want to arrest their leader, Vincent Halloran. And yet, despite the film's incredible pool of talent, it is a cloying mess. Sternberg had been fired by producer Howard Hughes during filming and was replaced by Ray. As such, the film seems to stumble through two very different directorial styles. The action scenes and exteriors demonstrate Sternberg's moody, ultra-atmospheric hard-light cinematography that brings the port to life as a character in and of itself. Meanwhile, most of the dialogue and exposition scenes are bathed in soft-lighting which abruptly removes the characters from their exotic surroundings. Here is a film at war with itself. Sternberg's scenes demonstrate a certain detachment which seems to suggest that the characters are merely doomed cogs in an uncaring society, much like the laborers and prostitutes in his earlier film The Docks of New York (1928). But Ray's scenes are more in line with traditional films where the characters drive the plot forward via their own prerogatives. The result is a film that feels like it is comprised of scenes from two completely different pictures.
6/10
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