'Where Danger Lives'

Co-presented by the Film Program and Office of Public Programs and Engagement at Columbia University School of the Arts; and Columbia Global Centers.

Watch Matthew Rivera’s (CC ’18) introduction below.

“Mitchum! Action!”

A couple on the run barrels toward Mexico, their only hope for escape, in Where Danger Lives, a long-overlooked noir potboiler from RKO Pictures. The film arrived with considerable pedigree when it hit theaters in 1950: it starred budding screen icon Robert Mitchum and co-starred a once-again-cuckolded Claude Rains (Notorious); it was shot by veteran cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, who lensed the Mitchum hit Out of the Past three years prior; and it was written by Charles Bennett, who by 1950 had written seven of Alfred Hitchcock’s features. Despite the prominent names on both sides of the camera, Where Danger Lives did poorly at the box-office and has received little attention since (you’ll find it on few, if any, streaming services).

Though no long-lost masterpiece, Where Danger Lives offers a hearty serving of noir comfort food. Mitchum’s character appears drunk and/or concussed for a majority of the film, which makes the role an ideal one for his signature sleepy eyelids and baritone drawl. Amid the slow-drip tension, Bennett’s script delivers a sly critique of American capitalism at its most unscrupulous. His protagonists encounter a series of swindlers on their journey to liberation who either bleed them dry or offer them protection...for a steep price. If the U.S.-Mexico border represents escape for the characters of Where Danger Lives, Bennett never lets us forget the impossible, ultimately unpayable price tag for such freedom.