Overrated and overhyped

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

The premise and first third of Singapore are really interesting, but once the mystery is exposed, the last two thirds of the movie are far from entertaining. Fred MacMurray travels to Singapore, and while he's pleasant to his fellow American tourists Porter Hall and Spring Byington, it's clear to see he's unsettled about something. He goes to a particular table at a particular nightclub at a particular hotel, sits, and gives the audience a voice-over monologue about how he misses Linda, the woman he was going to marry five years prior. Cue a romantic flashback: Fred was smuggling pearls into Singapore when he met and fell in love with Ava Gardner. They were going to be wed, but they were separated during a Japanese air raid and she was killed. End of flashback. Now, as Fred sits at their table, he hears their song playing, and lost in his sad thoughts, he actually sees Ava Gardner on the dance floor!Intriguing, right? Well, I'm sure you can think of at least three explanations as to why he suddenly sees his dead lover after five years. I did, but unfortunately, the film took a fourth, far less interesting direction. After that, the most enjoyable part of the film is the patter between Fred MacMurray and Richard Haydn. Richard plays a deputy in the police department, so he's trying to catch Fred's criminal activities, but they're also longtime pals so there's a bit of leniency in his method. Think of Kevin Kline and Jean Reno's relationship in 'French Kiss'. Unfortunately, with not much of a love story, even less of a mystery, and not too much suspense about Fred's pearl smuggling business, there's not really a good reason to watch the movie. Unless you're an Ava Gardner fan, which I, unapologetically, am not.

A sudden World War II bombing interrupts the engagement plans of pearl smuggler Fred MacMurray and the beautiful Ava Gardner, whom MacMurray assumes is dead. Five years later, the war is over, and MacMurray returns to Singapore on another smuggling scheme, and finds Gardner, alive, but not well, now married to a wealthy plantation owner who adores her and can't quite let her go. MacMurray gets deeper into danger with nefarious men (lead by portly Thomas Gomez) desperate to get the hands on the pearls they believe MacMurray took five years before, and as Gardner begins to recall her past, she becomes involved in a devious plot to bring MacMurray down.Every single archetype of "Casablanca" is there from the brooding anti-hero to the unavailable heroine he loves to the noble husband, and even to the smarmy villains. Richard Haydn's noble Deputy Commissioner is a duplicate of Claude Rains, and there is even a Peter Lorre like creep named Pepe (Lorre's character name in "All Through the Night", another Bogart adventure). This film was definitely manipulated to create sentiment, not only for the torn-apart lovers but the noble husband (Roland Culver) as well. Porter Hall and Spring Byington are tossed in a lame attempt for comic relief. In the film's relatively short running time, you can count all of the parallels, and when you get to the airport-set finale, try not to gag by the ridiculousness of that.

Fred Macmurray played one unforgettable role as Walter Neff in "Double Indemnity" (1944) and I cannot quite separate him from this role when I see FM perform in other films like "Singapore" where he plays Matt Gordon a pearl smuggler.I fervently believe the best acted performances come from the actor having an affinity or some actual practical experience of the role in real life.I am not saying FM was into insurance fraud but he looked more comfortable in an American setting.The plot has been adequately commented on by other reviewers above, most notably by Terrell-4 from San Antonio Texas, whose review I commend.There were a few things I found irritating and getting a second rate TV director will not produce a first class film.First, after Ava Gardner had being roughed up by one of the "baddies" to get her to talk, there was not a blemish, bruise or mark on her Venus like face.When FM wants to pay for his bar bills he decides how much he will pay leaving some notes on the table, without waiting to receive a bill - I noticed he did this on at least two occasions.Yet again actors (FM) appear to be able to walk through other guests hotel bedroom doors or magically have the right key in their pockets, this is a general continuity criticism of films of this era; so much for hotel security.What is an American gangster doing in Singapore? One of the "heavies" sounded like he came from 1920s Chicage!On the plus side I liked Roland Culver's performance as plantation manager van Leiden who played an honest man who is prepared to give up his Venus like wife because he knows she really loves Walter Neff (sorry FM).Richard Haydn for once plays it straight as the police commissioner in colonial Singapore on the trail of local malefactors and I hardly recognised him compared to say his performance as Mr Wilson in "Cluny Brown" (1946).Taken all together I found it enjoyable but uneven and therefore rated it 6/10.

Not quite a melodrama; not quite a suspense thriller. Not quite an A movie but certainly not a B-level. Singapore takes place, of course, in Singapore, just as the Japanese are invading and then just after the end of WWII. It's a reasonably solid, efficient story of three people: Matt Gordon (Fred MacMurray), a suave and slightly sardonic smuggler of pearls. Gordon is an honest man at heart, but usually can't resist easy money and the kind of gambles necessary to win it; Michael Van Leyden (Roland Culver), a wealthy planter who spent most of the wars years in a Japanese-run prison camp. He's a brisk, authoritative man with one great weakness. He loves his wife; and Linda Grahame (Ava Gardiner), a beautiful, sultry young woman, perhaps something of an adventuress. She and Gordon fall in love and are to be married. Then the Japanese invade, bombs fall, and when Gordon leaves Linda for a moment to retrieve pearls he had hidden in his hotel room, he returns without the pearls to burning waterfront ruins and no sign of Linda. He searches desperately and then must leave in his boat, which is crowded with refugees. We can imagine his surprise five years later when he returns to Singapore after the war and sees in a posh nightclub a beautiful young woman who looks exactly like Linda. She is dancing with Van Leyden...and when she is introduced to Matt Gordon, he learns she is Ann Van Leyden, Michael's wife. Yes, that most useful of plot devices is established...amnesia. Matt Gordon is determined to do two things. He is certain that if Ann Van Leyden can only recover her memory she will remember him and their love. He is almost equally determined to recover the pearls he had hidden in his hotel room before the war. Van Leyden is determined to keep his wife, whom he loves dearly, by his side. They had met in that prison camp during the war. Van Leyden saved Ann many times. He will do almost anything, except cause her unhappiness, to save her again. And Ann...or is it Linda? What does she want? See the movie. Hovering in the background is the shady Mr. Mauribus (Thomas Gomez), a large-figured and often sweaty crook who has a claim to Gordon's pearls. While Mauribus won't stoop to physical violence himself, his assistant, Sascha, is all too eager to be let off the lease. It's no spoiler to say that everyone except Mr. Mauribus and Sascha eventually act with honor. A happy ending is in the cards at the start of the movie when Matt Gordon enters the old hotel, pauses in the lobby and then tells a bellhop to take his luggage to his room. He looks around the deserted bar and then walks to a small table for two, partly hidden by palm fronds. When the waiter arrives, Gordon orders two gin slings. Yes, that was what he and Linda always drank here, hidden away in their own world. For Fred MacMurray, a reliable and versatile leading man, this is one more of the many lead roles he took where his personality and competence made a career for him. If he didn't set many sparks off, he also didn't make many duds. For Ava Gardner, however, this was one of her early starring roles where the studio was deliberately building her up for bigger and better things. She looks great, acts a bit, and has a sympathetic character to play. For me, the joy and interest in the movie, however, rests with three character actors. There's Richard Haydn playing deputy commissioner Hewitt. It's a straight, honest role and Haydn does it just fine. The fun is remembering all those comic roles Haydn worked his way into, where he deliberately unleashed his adenoids. Watch him as the butler in And Then There Were None (1945). Few people could play oozy, greasy opportunists, cowards and villains as well as Thomas Gomez. Given a chance, he also could do just fine in sympathetic parts. Watch him as John Garfield's older brother in Force of Evil (1948). Most of all, there's Roland Culver, a superb, highly skilled British actor who spent some time in Hollywood but returned to England. He was at his very best playing highly competent men of the world. He was as much at home in sophisticated comedy as he was in serious drama. For the sophisticated comedy part, you can't do better than to watch him in On Approval (1944). And to prove he hadn't lost his edge in old age, watch him as the elderly and irascible Duke of Omnium in The Pallisers (1974).