Beautiful and Dangerous, 1954

Robert Mitchum & Jean Simmons

I started watching this film this morning while having my morning cuppa. I'd gotten out of bed late - I'd been poorly for days. I don't usually watch daytime telly, and I certainly hadn't expected to get completely sucked in by this - delightful - movie.

The story briefly is that Jean Simmons' character Corby Lane comes to stay in this small town, she's not short of cash and starts dealing out gifts and money anonymously. From the outset, there's chemistry with the town doctor, 'Doc' Robert Mitchum. Except her good intentions backfire, when the barter-based economy and equilibrium in the town is upset by the sudden influx of wealth. Turns out she had a debt to pay since when she was a baby, the town had a whipround for an operation that saved her life.

It's highly sentimental, full of cliches and the acting is suspect. However, it's really laugh-out-loud funny and it's genuinely charming in it's simple message about community and small town economics. The town drunk, the sherriff, the general store, the vet, the doc, the farmer, the kid on the porch - it's all there. (Yep, it's Bedford Falls)

Okay, it's a 50s allegory about upsetting the equilibrium of the social and economic order by an irrational distribution of wealth, but had they replaced actors with animated animals, I bet it would have been taken more seriously.

Hell, it's just a nice romantic comedy. It even made me find Robert Mitchum attractive, and name my first born 'Digger'.