The Hidden Torpedo
The Lady Has Plans, from 1942, takes place in neutral Portugal. Sidney Lanfield (The Hound of the Baskervilles, You'll Never Get Rich) directed this espionage comedy. Although there's a murder in the first scene, the film's lightheartedness reflects the American cinematic attitude toward the war in Europe, before Pearl Harbor. The film's release in January of 1942 indicates it was made prior to Hollywood's commitment to make films in line with War Department thinking. The bias leans away from Nazi Germany, of course, and towards Britain, as befits contemporary American assistance to the latter nation.
The Germans are depicted as health conscious, running a large spa in Lisbon, the rooms filled with men bathing, walking about in shorts, as if Lanfield and his costume designer, Edith Head, were mimicking Leni Riefenstahl's epic to the Aryan body type, Olympia.
The main German (Albert Dekker) is a typical humorless Nazi loyalist, in competition with a middle-aged British agent (Roland Young) for stolen plans of a radio-controlled torpedo. The thieves (Addison Richards and Margaret Hayes) have hired an old draughtsman to draw the plans on Margaret Hayes' back and then to cover them with a solution of invisible ink, hence the film's title.
Margaret Hayes, though eponymous, is not the main character. To get the plans to Lisbon and before the eyes of Albert Dekker's camera, she and Addison Richards arrange to switch her identity with an American journalist (Paulette Goddard). The journalist's boss in Lisbon is played by Ray Milland (an American secret agent posing as a newsman), and since this is a comedic film with occasional thrills and mild menace, his relationship with Goddard starts out rocky, even gets weird in one scene, but ends with their kiss and the promise of much offscreen fucking.
Paulette Goddard reaffirmed my previous impression of her that she was a delightful screen performer, vivacious, cute, and sexy as well. She's regarded by Albert Dekker, Roland Young, and, for a while, Ray Milland, as the spy who has the plans on her back. Young and Milland, out for drinks with Goddard, agree that they need to get a look at her back, to put the special stuff on her skin that will reveal the plans for the torpedo. How? Young suggests a Mickey Finn, Milland agrees reluctantly. The bartender, though, also knows Dekker and other Nazis, is perhaps paid better by them, so he slips Milland and Young Mickeys, leaving Goddard with an ordinary drink. The screenwriter and director flirted closely with the idea of making Paulette pass out so that her naked
back could be examined by two men in a hotel room. Instead, they pass out together on the same bed.
This isn't the only suggestive element in the film. Early on, we get a look at the plans themselves on a piece of paper, copied by the draughtsman (who gets shot by Addison Richards after being promised a hundred dollars by Margaret Hayes). The image shows a torpedo in profile with a ring on top, presumably the radar assembly. This image, copied onto Margaret Hayes' back and then rendered invisible, depicts a long, hard, cylindrical object hidden on her body. It's as if the long hard object is buried inside of her, with a ring on the top, symbolizing marriage to make it respectable, I guess. Maybe it's just my dirty mind, but it seems pretty obvious the screenwriter was making a little joke.
The film takes place in Lisbon, although it may as well be Malibu. Even so, it's entertaining enough, and only seventy-six minutes long. I watched it on YouTube. Paulette Goddard is always worth watching and her clothes are magnificent.
Vic Neptune
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