MY MAN AND I (1952)

While variations on ‘Stormy Weather’ play in the background (as in ‘don’t know why there’s no sun up in the sky, stormy weather, since my man and I ain’t together’), tough guy director William Wellman pulls out the hoke, anointing Ricardo Montalban patron saint of immigrant chumps. He’s Chu-Chu Ramirez, proud new U.S. citizen doing migrant farm work with his Mexican pals, but with a goal in mind while they lay about, gamble & drink away their wages between harvests. Not Chu-Chu! He reads his secondhand encyclopedia (up to ‘D’), meets-cute with sad-eyed lush Shelley Winters, and insists on getting paid the ninety bucks Wendell Corey owes him for clearing a field while unhappy wife Claire Trevor put the moves on him. Calm, honest, content, Chu Chu has faith in America, but the system sure looks rigged against him when he’s dragged into court after a shooting incident. What’s really being rigged here is the screenplay and acting, though it’s nice to see Corey in a repellent role that suits him. Wellman, with lenser William Mellor, shoots most of this little B-pic in the flattest of styles, then suddenly brings out low-key film noir lighting for a prison break. (Striking, too. Second unit stuff?) Corny as the whole set up is, it might have worked with better chemistry between Montalban & Winters; blowsy & drunk in the role (untamed by Wellman), her appeal hard to fathom.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/DOUBLE-BILL: With both Montalban & Fernando Lamas on the lot, M-G-M had one too many Latin Lovers for an A-List breakout. See what might have been as Montalban burns up the screen in Anthony Mann’s blistering illegal immigrants pic, BORDER INCIDENT/’49.