Best movie of this year hands down!

Am I Missing Something?

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Copyright 12 March 1948 by Paramount Pictures. New York release at the Paramount: 31 March 1948. U.S. release: 12 March 1948. U.K. release: 9 February 1948. Sydney release at the Prince Edward (for 4 weeks): 26 March 1948. Australian release: 22 April 1948. 8,493 feet. 94 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Air Force buddy has only two months to live, so Major Alan Ladd takes on a dubious charter flight to earn the money to show him a good time.COMMENT: This final teaming of Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake is a bit disappointing. Many of the ingredients for an exciting film are here, but the script forces Ladd to constantly take a back place in romance to Douglas Dick. Ladd has too little to do. And when the climactic action is handed over to Wally Cassell, one wonders if the producers are not trying to torpedo our hero's career. (A great stunt fall at the climax - but it's not Ladd that's made to look good).Nevertheless, the film is beautifully mounted. Seitz's photography is most attractive, sets and costumes are dazzling. Fenton's direction is immaculately smooth. No expense has been spared on crowds and atmosphere.Despite his often-relegated position on the sidelines, Ladd plays with his usual gruff vigor. Miss Lake is appropriately viperish as a vamp with both eyes on a fortune. Mr Dick is amiably weak as the buddy with too much platinum in his head. The main support players - Luther Adler as a cat-and-mouse detective, Mikhail Rasumny clerking a rundown hotel, Morris Carnovsky as a silken villain, and Eugene Borden as a philosophical if exasperated captain/engineer/steward - are one and all excellent, though Mr Cassell is perhaps just a little too bright and breezy in his stereotyped role of a girl-loving sergeant.OTHER VIEWS: Exciting thriller, played against exotic backgrounds - all brilliantly created in the studio, with convincing miniatures and almost imperceptible process screen effects. The art directors have excelled themselves here. Both sets and players are lovingly photographed by ace cameraman John F. Seitz. Director Fenton has drawn capable performances from his cast, kept the plot moving briskly and staged his action sequences with thrilling realism and drama. In all, splendid entertainment, impeccably (and expensively) produced. - J.H.R. writing as George Addison.

This movie does prove that Alan Ladd looks great in a tuxedo and would have made a great James Bond. Veronica Lake plays a secretary without a sense of humor until the last 1/3 of the film where she suddenly starts to look more like her usual sexy, peekaboo self. Only the last 1/3 of the film takes place in Saigon. The first hour is just the characters trying to get to Saigon. Weirdly, almost all the last 1/2 hour takes place in a hotel where their appears to be no Vietnamese. The movie could have been called Santa Cruz or San Diego, or any city name with as much relevance to the plot. The movie is surprisingly lacking in wit and suspense, at least until the last 20 minutes where things pick up a bit. I think the movie is just for Alan Ladd fans. The quote "This happened because it had to happen" is the best line in the movie, which tells you how bad the movie is.

SAIGON was the last teaming of ALAN LADD and VERONICA LAKE, and sorry to say, it's also their least satisfying effort.It's the buddy theme again, with Ladd and WALLY CASSELL trying to protect their buddy, DOUGLAS DICK, from the truth that he doesn't have long to live--and then getting involved in an adventurous tale of smugglers, loot and murder. VERONICA LAKE turns up to join the trio for a cloak and dagger sort of tale that pits the three buddies against the villainous LUTHER ADLER.Neither Ladd nor Lake is seen to best advantage here and the script, as well as their seeming indifference to the storyline, is the real problem. Paramount apparently made this one in a hurry to cash in on whatever remained of the star chemistry Ladd and Lake once had, but they got poor returns for their efforts and didn't invest enough time to create a good enough script.For Ladd and Lake fans, it's strictly below average as entertainment.

This last and least successful teaming of Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake is still highly watchable for the sizzling chemistry between them and the Byzantine, if predictable, plot twists and dagger wielding bad guys behind the curtains. Alan Ladd's character has decided to kick around the Far East waiting for his terminally ill army buddy to die, rather than return home to normalcy after WWII. The various plot-lines involving smugglers and murderers is of less interest than the screen presence of the two headliners.