Macao

Macao is a 1952 crime adventure set in the Portuguese colony of Macao, where the gangster Vincent Halloran runs the gambling trade with the protection of a corrupt local police lieutenant, Sebastian. Word reaches Halloran that an American undercover agent is on the way to bring him back to the United States, and suspicion quickly falls on Nick Cochran, an American drifter with a past he would like to leave behind. Nick takes a job at Halloran's casino, where the singer Julie Benson has also been hired, much to the annoyance of Halloran's girlfriend Margie. Alongside them arrives Lawrence Trumble, a travelling salesman whose business is not all it appears, with Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, William Bendix, Thomas Gomez, Gloria Grahame and Brad Dexter in the main roles.

The film was directed by Josef von Sternberg, appearing sixth in the chronology of his features after The Blue Angel, Morocco, Dishonored, Shanghai Express and Blonde Venus, and written by Bernard C. Schoenfeld, Stanley Rubin and George Bricker, with Alex Gottlieb producing for RKO Radio Pictures. Running 81 minutes, it draws a mixed but respectable response: on IMDb it holds 6.6/10 from around 4,200 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.3/10 from a much smaller sample of 53. A critics' rating of 5.9/10 from nine reviews places professional opinion slightly below the audience scores.