Review of Fire Down Below

Johnny Mercer knew a thing or two about women like Irena(Miss R.Hayworth battered but unbowed as a refugee from just about everything) wearily passing from man to man before she ends up on a ratty boat owned by Mr R.Mitchum and Mr J.Lemmon en route to anywhere as long as she hasn't been there before. Without really trying she causes a violent fight between the two men and Lemmon is only saved by a timely intervention by the splendid Mr E.Connor as their deckhand. Put ashore she allows Lemmon to accompany her to a run - down hotel and hatch a plot to smuggle her back to the USA which is foiled when Mitchum betrays him to the Customs.Miss Hayworth and Mr Mitchum clearly deserve each other and become lovers.Forced to sign on as crew in a decrepit freighter,Lemmon is trapped by the legs in a collision at sea and can only be saved if he allows the doctor(Mr B.Lee in what may be his finest screen performance)to amputate.You may extrapolate the rest with little difficulty,but much of the joy in "Fire down below" is in the casting of the smaller parts with Mr A.Newley exceptional as a barman/fixer who initially gets the three main characters together and a customarily wry turn from Mr H.Lom as the Harbourmaster who must make the decision to tow the damaged freighter out to sea to avoid an explosion which would devastate the waterfront and undoubtedly cost him his job and at the same time abandon Mr Lemmon to his fate which also would undoubtedly cost him his job. I first saw the film in 1958 at the "Savoy" on Brighton seafront in a more innocent world where it was o.k. to like Americans and view them as the potential saviours of western civilisation rather than the precursors of its doom,o.k. to see the U.S. Navy as an honourable,brave and helpful organisation run by nice guys like Mr B.Colleano despite being Canadian. Now of course those naive beliefs are no longer self - evident although I still grimly cling to them along with the hope that,out there somewhere Mitchum,Lemmon and Hayworth are living in a "Jules et Jim" menage a trois happily ever after. Well,I never said I was smart.