A Lady Without Passport

I didn't realize that I had a bunch of movies with second-tier actor James Craig on my DVR, largely I'd guess because he wasn't the memorable actor and for the most part didn't get to be the lead in bigger movies. Some months back, Noir Alley ran a film with him in it, which I recently got around to watching: A Lady Without Passport.

The movie starts off in New York, with a man named Ramon walking down a street and looking nervous. A car pulls up alongside ramon, with a man inside telling him that he can't get away with "it", whatever "it" is, and that Palinov wants his money. Ramon tries to get away, and gets run down for his troubles, much like "Christopher" at the beginning of The House on 92nd Street. The police investigate, and find half of a $1,000 bill in his pocket. More interestingly is the CSI-type examination that finds traces of sugar cane, and soil of a type most common to Cuba. This, they believe, is a case for Immigration and Naturalization.

Cut to the INS, where investigator Frank Westlake (that's James Craig) is responsible for the case. He knows that he's going to have to send one of his agents down to Havana. This being the early 1950s, it was a time when people could still travel easily between the US and Cuba, at least if they were citizens of one of the two countries. However, there are a lot of peopl from Europe who fled the continent after the war and got the idea that getting into the US via a third country might be a good idea. It isn't, but has resulted in a bunch of people flooding the American Embassy with their applications. And if they can't get in legally, perhaps they might get in illegally.

So Westlake finds an agent who can speak a suitable European language to be able to pose as a refugee. That man is Pete Karczag (John Hodiak), who speaks Hungarian and is sent down to Havana to get the dirt on the people responsible for trying to smuggle in people who can't get to America properly. They already have a good idea that that man is Palinov (George Macready), so Karczag goes there and immediately tried to befriend Palinov.

While at Palinov's bar, he also meets Marianne Lorress (Hedy Lamarr). She, like all of the others, is someone who fled the European troubles, and would like to get into America. Things get worse for her, however, when she tries to work at one of the nightclubs. She doesn't have a work permit, so Pete covers for her by claiming to be married to her. This is also a good way for him to try to get more information on the sly regarding Palinov. But of course, as Karczag walks around Havana (apparently, real location shooting was done), Karczag begins to fall in love with Lorress. Worse, Palinov figures out Karczag is an American agent.

But the real climax comes when some of the refugees finally get on a clandestine flight bound for Florida. The race is on to find these refugees, who are in danger because who knows what will happen to them if the Americans find them. I'm reminded of Secret Service of the Air, where the smugglers simply opened up the bomb bay and dropped the immigrants out of the plane to their deaths.

Unfortunately, A Lady Without Passport is little more than a programmer, with a worn out plot and longer sequences of not much happening. It's also not really a noir, but Eddie Muller keeps stretching the definition of noir.