LISBON (1956)

Entering a death spiral as cash-cow program Westerns migrated to tv, Republic Pictures tried to up their game with improved TruColor (vivid in Kino Lorber’s restored DVD) and ‘Naturama,’ their own WideScreen process. If only they’d given equal attention to storyline, dialogue, characterization & staging. Pretty dreadful, if not without historical/technical interest to film geeks. Producer/director Ray Milland stars as a sort of playboy smuggler, running luxury contraband goods in on his yacht, the fastest boat in Lisbon’s port. And that makes him just the man needed by swanky international thief Claude Rains to handle the ransom exchange that will return aging multi-millionaire Percy Marmont to his much younger wife Maureen O’Hara. The twists? O’Hara would be perfectly happy if the old man died during the exchange; Milland can imagine a rich future with this soon-to-be widow even as he pursues an affair with a beauty from Rains’ personal harem. The basic lack of morals from all concerned makes a pleasant surprise, and there’s something delicious in Rains’ tactic of punishing wayward girls by burning the evening gowns he likes to give them. Yikes! (If only they’d show this unique bit of fashion torture!). Alas, the yacht sails, the film runs aground.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Milland megged a handful of outlier pics (A MAN ALONE/’55; THE SAFECRACKER/’58) as well as some more conventional tv, even finding a spot for all but forgotten silent film star Percy Marmont in both this one and in HOSTILE WITNESS/’68. None of these seen here, but MAN ALONE (also newly restored) coming up.