[.ca] Million Dollar Weekend

Sometimes bad luck is good luck in disguise:
A million bucks, an exotically beautiful woman, a stopover in Hawaii - sounds like a pretty good weekend. Unless, of course, you've stolen the money, and the beautiful woman is a possible murderer being blackmailed by just the kind of fellow willing and able to steal your little windfall when you stupidly leave it behind in your room while you head down to the bar. This 1948 release, featuring Gene Raymond as star, producer, and director, is a wonderful little film that sort of gets around to implying that crime doesn't pay. Raymond plays Nicholas Lawrence, a stockbroker who steals a cool million from his workplace and sets his course toward Shanghai. Everything is going according to plan - until he takes his plane seat across from Cynthia Strong (Osa Massen, also known as Stephanie Paull - although she took that name for one movie only) and her "friend" Alan Marker (Francis Lederer). When the damsel in distress tells Nicholas that her "friend" is threatening her and asks him to pretend he's an old friend of hers, he obliges (he may be a thief, but he's also a gentleman). He has no idea that Marker is blackmailing the lady for murdering her husband. On a stop-over in Hawaii, the three characters' continue to cross paths with one another, and it isn't long before Nicholas' briefcase goes missing from his room. Now everyone is suspicious of everyone else - and of course, neither Nicholas nor Cynthia can come right out and share their secrets with one another. The only one who knows both of his companions' stories is Marker. Since this is a movie, it's only natural that adversity breeds romance between the seemingly star-crossed Nicholas and Cynthia. Million Dollar Weekend is a fine movie all the way around, featuring a good script, talented actors, and beautiful (albeit black & white) scenery. It's relatively exciting and suspenseful, even though most of the action consists of conversations among the characters (which is not to say that fisticuffs don't break out eventually). Those raised on a staple of modern films may find this hard to believe, but they actually used to make character-driven films, and Million Dollar Weekend is a darn good representative of those bygone days.