DANGEROUS CROSSING (20th Century-Fox 1953) Fox Home Video

Sad, actually, to remember the career of Jeanne Crain, one of 2oth Century-Fox’s most amiable and fresh-faced stars, groomed for excellence in the mid-1940’s, just before that whole era of acquiring talent like paperclips when to hell and a hand-basket. An excellent ice skater and former Miss Pan-Pacific, Crain came to the attention of Fox talent scouts, largely due to her irrefutable beauty, which landed her a cameo in The Gang’s All Here (1943), and then, miraculously, a starring role in the homespun yarn, Home in Indiana (1944) with Walter Brennan – a sizable hit. And although her acting was almost universally panned by the critics, something of that intangible ‘star quality’ seemed to linger about her, enough to propel studio chief, Darryl F. Zanuck to continue to market her in starring roles throughout the rest of the forties. Indeed, the gamble paid off when Crain received solid reviews for her work in both Winged Victory (1944) and State Fair (1945). That same year, she also appeared in a cameo in Leave Her to Heaven, Fox’s dark and heavy-hitting box office smash, costarring Gene Tierney and Cornel Wilde. And although Crain would have preferred to play the bit part of the flashy harlot in My Darling Clementine (1946), Zanuck’s perceived star-billing for her, instead resulted in a reunion with Wilde in Centennial Summer (1946) Fox’s enfeebled attempt to recapture and bottle the magic of MGM’s Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). Crain’s most fondly remembered role was likely as Margie (1946), followed by a hiatus in which she appeared in rather tepid fare, until being cast in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s A Letter to Three Wives (1949) then, Pinky (1949), in which she played a girl of mixed race.

Director, Joseph M. Newman’s Dangerous Crossing (1953) catches Crain at the tail end of her Fox tenure – a B-thriller, made long after the bloom of her initial stardom had worn off and Zanuck had already lost virtually all of his interest in promoting her to A-list productions. Based on the radio play ‘Cabin B-13’ by noted playwright, John Dickson Carr, Dangerous Crossing is a rather impressively mounted endeavor, shot on an even more impressively minuscule $500,000 budget, and, in just 19 days. Incorporating every hand-me-down prop and costume cataloged from Fox’s costly retelling of Titanic (1953), Dangerous Crossing moves along briskly at a scant 76-minutes, largely thanks to an adept screenplay by Leo Townsend. Carr was better known on the radio for his ‘locked door’ mysteries; basically, one-act scenarios where all the action takes place in one or two rooms where no point of entry for the crime at hand can, at first, be deduced. In Townsend’s revision, our story opens up to take in the varied decks of a luxury liner, made only slightly less claustrophobic by the atmospheric touches of a perpetually mired, dense fog. Our story begins in earnest with newlyweds Ruth Stanton Bowman (Jeanne Crain) and her husband, John (Carl Betz) embarking on a honeymoon cruise. However, after carrying his wife across the threshold into their cabin, John informs Ruth he must leave some money at the purser’s office – then, mysteriously never returns. Ruth searches the ship, but to no avail. Even more disturbing is the fact that when Ruth returns to B-16, the cabin she was to have shared with John, she discovers all their luggage has also vanished.

Ruth begs Captain Peters (Willis Bouchey) to conduct a complete search of the vessel for her husband. This, he does, only to deduce no such passenger ever boarded. Later on, it will even be suggested Ruth and John were never married – that John is, in fact, a figment of Ruth’s fertile – if deranged - imagination. Indeed, as Ruth’s concern becomes more frenzied, everyone from the ship’s Purser (Gayne Whitman) to its matron, Anna Quinn (Mary Anderson) – who actually met John and Ruth when they first boarded – deny having ever seen the couple together. The one man who might be able to help, the ship’s doctor, Paul Manning (Michael Rennie) grows increasingly suspicious. Is he really trying to help Ruth resolve her mystery? Or is he placating her erratic behavior while keeping the truth about John’s whereabouts a secret? Eventually, it all comes out – John is actually the ship’s Third Officer, Jack Barlowe; in love with Anna and plotting to toss Ruth overboard to gain access to her inheritance. Alas, by the time of this big reveal, the story has lost almost all of its steam ans suspense.

Dangerous Crossing is fairly dull, and that's a shame, because Joseph LaShelle's cinematography really sets the mood and tone of foreboding that Leo Townsend’s screenplay is incapable to maintain. Refurbished sets from Titanic add gloss to this sea-faring voyage – actually shot entirely on sound stages with process screens. And Newman, a workhorse eager to make good, reportedly put his cast and crew through the paces, shooting a whopping 7-pages of script per day. To put this into context; a movie crew is usually fortunate to conquer 1-2 pages per camera set-up, per day. Unfortunately, and despite his flawless finesse, there are more than a few rough spots in this ill-fated trip that, cumulatively amount to a rather pedestrian noir thriller. Jeanne Crain plays Ruth as a sort of manic marionette, at one point, flailing about the grand ballroom like a hunted animal; wild-eyed, until her complete meltdown forces Capt. Peters to confine her to her room for the remainder of the voyage. There also seems to be no point to the inclusion of characters, Jim Logan (Max Showalter) or Kay Prentiss (Marjorie Hoshelle); the former a bumbling detective, the latter a sort of Eve Arden/Kay Thompson knock-off, first introduced as a possible confidant for Ruth, but then almost immediately jettisoned from the plot, presumably, to keep Ruth isolated in her thoughts. What is painfully apparent midway through is that this ship is stocked full of what director, Alfred Hitchcock coined MacGuffins – oddities like Karl Ludwig Lindt’s aged foreigner with a cane, meant to be slightly menacing even though he has absolutely nothing to do with this mystery. In the final analysis, Dangerous Crossing is sadly lacking in the thrills department.

As for Crain herself; soon after the picture’s premiere her Fox contract was allowed to lapse. Crain moved to Universal, where she would finishe out the decade, playing support in B-westerns and, on the side, doing a little television work.  By the mid-60’s, Crain entered her emeritus years in semi-retirement, infrequently granting interviews or appearing on game shows like What's My Line? In 1971, she officially left the business with two forgettable films: The Night God Screamed and Skyjacked (1972).  And although her marriage to Paul Brinkman had ‘unofficially’ ended with their separation back in the mid-sixties, the couple would remain married until his death in 2003. Barely 2 months later, Crain followed Brickman to the great beyond, buried net to her husband in Santa Barbara Cemetery.

Fox’s Home Video’s DVD of Dangerous Crossing delivers a fairly impressive B&W image. Though a hint of minor shimmering of fine details persists throughout, the overall image quality is refined with exceptional tonality and a considerable amount of fine detail evident throughout. Blacks are deep and solid. Whites are relatively pristine. Film grain is fairly accurately reproduced. The audio is mono as originally recorded and presented at an adequate listening level. Extras include a commentary track by Aubrey Solomon; ‘Peril At Sea’ a very brief featurette about the making of the film, as well as an interactive press book, stills, isolated musical score and the film’s original theatrical trailer. Interesting to note that Dangerous Crossing was not a part of the Kino Lorber/Fox deal that saw a good many of its vintage noir dramas arrive on Blu-ray, albeit, in varying degrees of quality.  Will it ever come to Blu-ray? I suppose we will have to wait and see.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

3

VIDEO/AUDIO

4

EXTRAS

3