- His Kind of Woman feels like two completely different films, which it apparently really was. The first, directed by John Farrow and based on a story by Gerald Drayson, is a relatively traditional noir in which a desperate gambler named Milner (Robert Mitchum) links up with a singer named Lenore Brent (Jane Russell) while on a paid vacation in Mexico that he suspects is too good to be true. The second film is more of a comedy action picture, directed by an uncredited Richard Fleischer, in which Hollywood star and hunting enthusiast Mark Cardigan (Vincent Price) injects some realism to his life by leading a heroic charge against a gangster named Ferraro (Raymond Burr). The two films intersect only in that Lenore hopes to marry Cardigan for his millions, not realizing that he already has a wife (Marjorie Reynolds), and because Ferraro is behind the scheme to hire Milner and steal his identity to re-enter the United States.
- If you can get past the film's fundamentally schizophrenic nature, you might appreciate Mitchum's strong performance and the film's many witty exchanges, as when Milner states that "Fools get away with the impossible," to which Lenore responds "That's because they're the only ones who try it." You may also enjoy Price's unrepentant scene-chewing and the various brawls, shootouts, and protracted struggles with Ferraro's goons (including Charles McGraw and John Mylong). I have yet to encounter a great performance by Russell, but she and Mitchum are certainly much more convincing than they would be in the following year's Macao. Raymond Burr is always amusing as a villain, but producer Howard Hughes may have been the film's real antagonist, pulling all manner of strings behind-the-scenes.
- Tim Holt, Jim Backus, and Paul Frees are also in this film.
