Review: “Please Believe Me” – Deborah Kerr (Summer Under the Stars #12)

Schedule:

• Please Believe Me
• The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
• Quo Vadis
• Young Bess
• King Solomon’s Mines
• The Sundowners
• Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison
• Black Narcissus
• An Affair to Remember
• Vacation From Marriage
• Dream Wife

Film Review

A woman (Deborah Kerr) inherits a cattle ranch in Texas from a friend after he has died. On the boat from London to Texas, she meets three suitors (Robert Walker, Peter Lawford, and Mark Stevens), who each have their own hidden agenda.

I chose to watch this movie because I’m attempting to watch all 20 films that Robert Walker made and thought it would be good to kill two birds with one stone. The movie reminded me quite a bit of The Lady Eve, as both take place on a boat and involve characters trying to swindle the rich. Unfortunately Please Believe Me felt like it was trying to emulate movies of the ’40s but didn’t have as much spunk or personality as it should have to achieve that.

It could just be my bias, but I would have preferred if the movie had just been about Walker’s grifter character trying to swindle Kerr. The other two actors/characters didn’t add anything to the story for me and didn’t have enough of a unique personality to separate themselves from each other. But with Walker, I enjoyed seeing his character’s two-faced qualities as well as his growth as he got to know Kerr and really started to fall for her.

Kerr has always been an actor I’ve felt mixed about for some reason; sometimes she does a little too much in her performances and overplays the eccentricities while other times I find her to be compelling. Thankfully in this movie I felt she did a good job of making her character smart enough to be believable, but also naive enough that we could understand how she might fall for the men’s tricks.

However, it would have also improved the movie if there had been more scenes just about her, not only in relation to the men. I never understood how she felt about anything except for mild amusement or confusion. She should have been the biggest presence in the movie but the longer it went on, the more I felt she was pushed aside, which made it hard for me to stay engaged.

It might also have helped to cast better comedic actors in each of the roles (except Walker, I think he’s one of the most underappreciated classic actors) because the script was pretty light and fluffy and I could see funnier people elevating it beyond its generic qualities. It grew pretty stagnant in the last 30 minutes with the repetitive back-and-forth between Kerr and her love interests that didn’t progress much either positively or negatively.

Several scenes were quite good though – the pool sequence in particular – but I could tell that many were supposed to make me laugh and I mostly just got second-hand embarrasment.

I’ve not really had good cinematic experiences with director Norman Taurog and Please Believe Me was no different. I’ve found that he has films with great casts and interesting ideas, but doesn’t seem to know how to harness either of them to their fullest or most entertaining potentials.

Final Thoughts

Kerr’s Performance: She seemed out of her element in some of the outwardly comedic parts, but I thought she successfully held the movie together and it was interesting to see her in a different kind of role than I’m used to.

Would I Recommend? Probably not a bright spot in any of the four leads’ careers but fine for a fluffy ’50s rom-com. Not really offensive but doesn’t offer anything new or unique.

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