In 1946, one of the most stylish films of the age came out, "Gilda". It was a story about a rich but rich and ruthless man with a gorgeous girlfriend and the sexual tension generated between her and the tough guy's new, younger partner. And, in "Gilda" you wondered why the rich ruthless guy would bring the pair together. Well, here in "Forbidden" you have the same basic plot with a few differences...only a few. You have the rich, ruthless guy (here it's Lyle Bettger...who even looks and talks a bit like George Macready) once again gets his gorgeous girlfriend (Juanne Dru) together with a young guy (Tony Curtis) and you wonder why...why would he do this when he knows that the pair used to be a number?! In the case of "Forbidden" there is another agenda. Eddie (Curtis) is working for the government and he's trying to get Christine (Dru) to come back to the States because she knows enough about Keit (Bettger) to put him in prison. And, all the while Keit keeps the pair together...like a cat toying with a couple mice!It's all quite good and Dru was never prettier. The music is lovely and the film quite good. I just didn't score it higher because it was just a bit too similar to "Gilda".

Mobster Alan Dexter has a perverse sense of humor in Forbidden. He's the local syndicate kingpin in Philadelphia and he sends out the former boyfriend of a rival's widow searching for her halfway around the world. Tony Curtis's travels take him to Macao where he finds his lost love Joanne Dru about to married to Lyle Bettger a local casino owner with power. To make sure Curtis is keeping his mind on business, Dexter sends Marvin Miller after Tony.That sense of humor is responsible for eventually rekindling some lost flames of love. Now Tony doesn't want Dru to marry Bettger nor does he want to complete his mission of bringing her back to Dexter. The rest of the film is taken up as to whether and how Tony and Joanne can escape everybody's clutches.Forbidden is a stylish bit of noir where no one got any closer to Macao than Universal's back lot. Curtis shows a bit of the street character he would hone to perfection in Sweet Smell Of Success. Dru as always is a fetching temptress in frontier gingham or some fashionable evening dress. Lyle Bettger is always a good villain although I will say he's quite a bit more subdued than he is in such classics as The Greatest Show On Earth and Union Station. It all ends quite spectacularly in a shipboard fire in the hold. That is worth seeing Forbidden for as well as our two attractive stars.

Even leftovers can be tasty. Rudolph Maté's Forbidden is a stir-fry composed of elements from several movies of the previous decade; Casablanca and To Have and Have Not are in the mix, but the dominant flavors are Macao and Gilda (on which Maté served as director of photography). And while there's nothing fresh about it, it staves off hunger for a feast of film noir – at least for a little while.Tony Curtis comes to Macao, port of intrigue, on a mission: To locate Joanne Dru, widow of a slain Philadelphia gangster, and bring her back to America (she knows too much). Interests in the City of Brotherly Love chose Curtis because he and Dru were once a hot item; nonetheless, they had him followed by another operative (Marvin Miller, probably best remembered as the unseen John Beresford Tipton's secretary on TV's The Millionaire).On his way into the Lisbon Club, which Dru's known to frequent, Curtis fends off a murderous attack on its owner (Lyle Bettger), who professes indebtedness and takes him back home to meet his fiancée – Dru. Jagged flashes of lightning alert us that the romance has rekindled. The rest of the movie relates Curtis' attempts to wrest Dru away from Bettger (who plays the George Macready role from Gilda). There's many an expected slip ‘twixt cup and lip, however. Every clandestine conversation draws unseen eavesdroppers, bringing to mind Charlie Chan's sagacious warning: `Two ears for every mouth.' Thoughts of Chan also appear in the person of Victor Sen Yung, his #2 son in many movies, who plays the Dooley Wilson/Hoagy Carmichael role (from Casablanca and To Have and Have Not, respectively) as a piano player at the Lisbon Club who knows his away around the unknown Macao and puts himself at Curtis' disposal. But just when the imperilled couple think they're home-free, Bettger resurfaces with his shark's-maw smile....Forbidden looks good, as one would expect from Maté, but it keeps a good pace as well (Maté's D.O.A. had to keep up with Edmond O'Brien's speed-walking, but his The Dark Past and Union Station had their longueurs). It breaks no new ground in the noir cycle, but, as a second-feature, it's decent enough.

I saw this film when it first came out and thoroughly enjoyed it. The cast were great, right down to the beautiful white Jaguar XK120. Surely it should be possible to see most of the old films rather than endless repeats of the limited few, many of which are hardly deserving of the privilege. One way or another I have managed to see many old favourites but this one still eludes me. Macao, made the year before is available on video - so I am keeping my fingers crossed.