‘Calcutta’ or — Ladd’s Wear?
John Farrow’s ‘Calcutta’ (1947) has a number of problems that preclude full enjoyment, not least being it invites direct comparison to better movies, specifically ‘Only Angels Have Wings’ (1939) and ‘Casablanca’ (1942), as well as the fact that Farrow, Ladd and Bendix have all done more memorable work elsewhere. The good news is that despite these issues this movie still contains some satisfying pleasures.
‘Calcutta’s your typical male-flyers in an exotic locale yarn where the testosterone flows and a fist fight is always on the cards and this life suits pilots Neale (Alan Ladd), Pedro (William Bendix) and their buddy Bill (John Whitney) to a tee. Yet when Bill’s fiancée, Virginia (Gail Russell), informs Neale and Pedro that Bill has been strangled, and on the evening of their engagement party no less, Neale and Pedro decide to investigate Bill’s murder themselves, an investigation that soon leads them into Calcutta’s murky world of nightclub singers, mysterious jewellery merchants and diamond smuggling.
As you can tell there’s absolutely nothing original going on here with a plot that contains zero narrative surprises. Not only that but Ladd’s Neale is easily one of the most misogynistic assholes ever to grace the silver screen with an attitude towards women that makes Connery’s Bond seem the epitome of liberal feminism. So it’s a dud, right? Not completely, so let’s move onto those aforementioned pleasures.
Now Ladd’s character might be that of a total dick but he’s an exceptionally well dressed dick with Neale sporting a wardrobe that’s so spectacular I’m pretty convinced nobody in a thousand mile radius of 1940’s Calcutta couldn’t even imagine let alone afford to wear. At one point he wears a suit so modern in design and with his hair styled in a proto-New Romantic quiff he looks less like an off duty pilot and more like a member of Spandau Ballet or Ultravox.
Then, a few minutes later, he wears suit that’s so phenomenal I literally let out a gasp. It’s completely white accompanied by a jet-black tie with white flowers cascading down it in an off centre manner but the effect is less that of white blossoms and more of shards of black lightning… and it’s GORGEOUS!
It means Neale is dressed entirely in white with only a flash of contrasting black so when Ladd gets up and walks across the room to answer a phone I realised that watching him do so was vastly more interesting than wondering what he was potentially going to find out.
There’s another moment when Ladd is sitting on a sofa and the curve of its back exactly matches the contours of his hair. Now, I have no idea if this was intentional or not but going by the amount of visual information happening throughout the rest of the movie I wouldn’t be surprised if it was.
And that’s because director Farrow and cinematographer John F. Seitz do a pretty remarkable job of constantly breaking up, fracturing and shattering visual space plus the way they’ll pull the eye in certain directions by use of angles, lines and shadows or suddenly pixelating the image by shooting through screens before giving way to a jolting clarity, so even the though story might not be terribly stimulating what we’re seeing certainly is.
‘Calcutta’ isn’t a classic movie by any means and certainly feels consciously derivative but it moves quickly, is kinda fun and has plenty of flashes of unexpected brilliance. And personally I could watch it for that suit and tie alone.
