Intrigue (film)

Plot

In post-war China, court-martialed pilot Brad Dunham (George Raft) now flies smuggled goods into the country. He attempts to force his immediate superior, Ramon Perez (Marvin Miller), to pay him more, but Perez resists, so Brad steals the cargo back.

The boss of the black-market operation is Tamara Baranoff (June Havoc), who agrees to Brad's demand of a 50% cut of the operation and fires Ramon as a show of good faith. Meanwhile, an American newspaper reporter, Marc Andrews (Tom Tully), a friend of Brad's, shows up in Shanghai to investigate black-market crime.

Brad meets a social worker, Linda Arnold (Helena Carter]), and their friendship makes Tamara jealous. She insists that Brad do something about the prying reporter and steer clear of that other woman. Tamara's criminal rival tips off Marc that his pal Brad is involved with the crime ring.

Marc is knifed by Tamara's rival just as he is delivering a copy of his story exposing the black market. His dying wish is that Brad deliver the story for him, telling Brad that it was Tamara whose testimony led to Brad's unjust court-martial.

Brad distributes her black-market goods to needy citizens. Ramon turns up to ambush Brad, but his gun goes off, killing Tamara instead, and Ramon is placed under arrest. Brad and Linda contemplate a new life together.

Production

The film was based on a story by George Slavin. Film rights were bought by Sam Bischoff, who had formed a company with George Raft. It was the second of a four picture deal Bischoff had with United Artists after Pitfall. The other pictures in the deal were to star Raft. Edwin Marin signed to direct. Bischoff had a credit line of $5 million to make the movies.

The plot was originally meant to involve smuggling blood plasma, but this was changed to whisky and cigarettes at the request of Chinese-American organizations. Raft regretted this change. Principal photography took place from April 28 to mid-June 1947.

Filming started 28 April 1947. It was June Havoc's first film since 1944.

Raft was hospitalised with illness during the shoot.

Reception

In his review of Intrigue for The New York Times, Thomas M. Pryor considered the film a "conventional exercise in screen melodramatics " and George Raft's role as "... all so much wasted effort on his part for no one could possibly inject any semblance of verisimilitude into the hopeless botch of incident [sic] which Barry Trivers and George Slavin set to paper under the impression that they were writing a screen play."

Radio adaptation

On May 10, 1948, George Raft and June Havoc reprised their film roles in a 60-minute radio adaptation of the film for a "Lux Radio Theater" broadcast.