Review of Dangerous Crossing

Using a formula that's tried and true, this ship-bound mystery is a tidy little movie with a reasonably satisfying conclusion. Crain plays a newlywed who boards a luxury liner with her husband of less than 24 hours Betz. They are just off a whirlwind courtship and elopement and happily board the ship, heading directly to their state room. Betz goes to the purser's office to stow some money, asking Crain to meet him in the bar in 15 minutes, but then seemingly vanishes into thin air. Furthermore, none of the crew can recall ever having seen him to begin with, including a stewardess (Anderson) who clearly did! Crain, who has already recovered from some emotional problems just prior to marrying Betz, begins to unravel as she struggles to prove that not only is her husband missing, but that he ever existed in the first place! An assortment of crew members and fellow passengers act as red herrings, alternately helping and hampering her in her quest. Chief aid comes from a kindly doctor played by Rennie, who can't be sure how much of what Crain is telling him is based on fact. Crain is lovely in the film, though her acting limitations are demonstrated at times. Her opening sequences are especially bad as she affects all sorts of forced expressions and twitchy head movements, over indicating everything she says, does and thinks. However, as her character calms down and as the tension heightens, her work fits into the movie better. Rennie is appealing, but maintains the appropriate amount of mysteriousness in order to keep his own potential as a suspect in place. Hoshelle (perhaps best known as a decade-long wife to Jeff Chandler) is interesting as a friendly, but somewhat severe acquaintance of Crain's. The film kicks off with an impressive tracking shot and maintains a decent amount of atmosphere throughout. It's always frustrating (intentionally so) to go along on a journey like this with a character, but the film manages a few less stressful interludes along the way. It benefits greatly from the impressive shipboard interiors left from the studio's version of "Titanic". It's highly doubtful that such sets would have been made specifically for a smaller film such as this (and likely that this film was green-lighted in order to take advantage of them.) The concept of someone suddenly disappearing without a trace has been a staple of stories and, later, films since at least the late 1800's and has appeared in movies as recent as "The Forgotten" in 2004. One memorable episode of TV's "The Big Valley" had Victoria Barkley frantically trying to find out what happened to her daughter Audra when she woke up in a hotel without a shred of evidence that her daughter had shared the adjoining room. If the film has any significant faults, it is that a) it makes it clear that Anderson has seen Betz and so there is never any doubt that she's lying (the others can honestly say they don't recall him) and that b) the villain would rather do away with Crain and end up with an accomplice rather than settle for what he/she has, which appears to be pretty good! Still, at a trim 75 minutes and with a nicely appointed veneer over it, this is not a bad way to kill some time.