Crisis (1950)

(On Cable TV, March 2021) Cary Grant steps away from romantic comedies to a thriller in Crisis, a film in which he plays a surgeon coerced into performing a life-saving operation on a South American dictator. Grant is impeccable as usual, but even he can’t quite slip into a role absent most of his strengths as an actor. Still, it’s not an uninteresting film — the buildup to the main narrative is not bad, what with a rich American and his wife getting dragged into their holiday destination’s politics without their consent, and then being forced to operate. There’s a strong medical ethics drama forced on the protagonist, as even an imperceptible slip of the fingers could change the course of an entire country — alas, the film doesn’t quite fulfill this premise, as other events prevent an honest resolution to this dilemma. Still, there’s some tension to the proceedings, especially in the increasingly thornier second act. This is not Grant at his finest, but it does feature him in a style close to his Hitchcock thrillers and dispensing with most of the acting tricks in his usual repertoire.   As such, and considering that most of the film generally holds up reasonably well, Crisis remains a good pick for seasoned Grant fans, if only to see him tackle something slightly different, and dispense with most of what made him such a fan favourite.