Rent Deported (1950)

Waiting for the Goods - and Bad - Deported review by CH

Robert Siodmak’s career began with People on Sunday, that 1930 film on which he worked with Billy Wilder and others before the events of 1933 precipitated his departing Germany and, via France, reaching Hollywood. There he found a skill for noir - who can forget his take on Woolrich in Phantom Lady, drumming scene and all?

With our perspective, we can see Deported (1950) as pivotal, a step in his return to Europe and the decline which found him dead a few months after his wife in 1973. Not that Deported can be accounted any sort of failure, even of a falling away. Put simply, it continues those noir elements with Jeff Chandler being released from Sing Sing after five years but not revealing where he has sequestered the $100,000 which landed him in a cell. (For all that lolling on a narrow, badly-sprung bed, he remains straight backed and even sharper suited.) The authorities decide to ease their troubles by exiling him to his native Italy while, naturally, keeping a watch upon his activities in Naples, Siena and other bright locations which contrast with the dark alleys which Siodmak had staked out earlier in the decade.

As in most noir, cherchez la feeme or, as it denizens might say, seek the broad. In this case, Chandler encounters sultry Märta Torén, a widowed Countess who is part of a charitable organisation which helps with food and other supplies for the many citizens poverty stricken by a war which caught them between German and Allied advances.

Yes, Chandler can now see the makings of a scam which could be all his to play for. Use that stash of dollars, via coded telegram, to pay for such supplies as a donation, and then, on their arrival, have these stolen and sold on the black market for more. Quids, liras in.

All this is as evil as the adulterated vaccines in another transplanted noir, the previous year’s The Third Man. The logistics of either racket would daunt many, but one accepts this Italian take on it while watching all of the otherwise leisurely waterside activity (quite a chunk of these ninety minutes). That said, as the crates arrive, there is as much shadowy, warehouse-set activity as any that Greene and Reed had depicted in Vienna by night (as producer Selznick wanted to call their film). Bullets are one thing, tumbling crates another. As long as these do not head our way, we are free to say that Deported provides enough to keep us on side if not quite sufficient to provide a return to these shores, well-populated as they are by the supporting cast.

Unusual - Deported review by sb

FILM & REVIEW Robert Siodmak is famous for making dark Noirs with a particularly bleak take on the human condition. This then is quite a departure - Chandler plays Vic who was born in Italy but has spend most of his life in New York. He has recently served 5 years for a 100 grand heist and has now been deported back to Italy. The money was never recovered and his partner follows looking for his share…..Vic refuses saying having done the time and never squealed the full amount is his. He travels back to his home town and gets taken in by his kindly Uncle who thinks he’s something big in the US Govt a fiction Vic is only too glad to maintain. He also meets and woos a widowed Countess who provides for the poor and this sparks an idea. He cannot have the cash sent from New York as the cops are watching so he arranges for all the money to spent on food and shipped over. Once it arrives he plans to steal it and sell it on the black market and convert it back into cash…..but by now he has fallen in love with town , the people and in particular the Countess…… FIlmed entirely on location making great use of the Italian landscape with Chandler as the rugged anti- hero and Toren as his romantic foil. As I say its miles from the normal Siodmak stuff but works just fine on its own terms - 4/5