In Casablanca “everybody comes to Rick’s”, in The Bribe it’s Pedro’s, a sweaty canteen somewhere in venal Central America, around which this messy mix of thriller, romance, exotic adventure and detective story plays out. Robert Taylor and Ava Gardner are the stars, but Charles Laughton is the standout, taking it upon himself – probably not for selfless reasons – to save this odd mishmash from itself with a performance that lifts everything up several rungs.
The story centres on a racket dealing in hooky war surplus, which FBI agent Rigby – no first name – has been sent in to sort out. Instantly suspicious characters include alcoholic ex-pilot Tug Hintten (John Hodiak) and his torch-singer wife Elizabeth (Gardner), a shadowy businessman called Carwood (Vincent Price) and JJ Bealer (Laughton), referred to in Rigby’s voiceover as “the pie-shaped man”, a sweating, lurking presence in a crumpled suit who can be only trouble.
Posing as a guy in town for the marlin fishing, Rigby goes to work, first heading out onto the waves with Carwood for some back-projected seascapes and a boat that’s obviously being rocked by a handful of guys out of view. But their repartee is good, nice and easy, Taylor’s coffee-roast voice and Price’s fluting playing off each other in an old-pros’ duet.
For alcoholic read impotent – Tug, I mean, a funny sexualised name – which means an open shot on goal for Rigby vis à vis Elizabeth, should he want it. This is Ava Gardner three years and four films after The Killers made her a star and the 27-year-old’s shoulders alone are a thing of wonder. So it’s not surprise that that’s exactly what what Rigby wants.
It would probably have been better if he didn’t. The relationship comes right out of nowhere and it feels driven by a need for the plot to get overwrought, in one of those he-suspects-her-but-is-also-banging-her dilemmas for a government agent. She calls him Rigby and he calls her Elizabeth.
So, a bit Casablanca, a bit The Old Man and the Sea and a lot of bad performances, in spite of the fact that the casting is excellent. Everyone sits in their roles perfectly. It’s the dialogue they seem to be having trouble with.
And like Casablanca, this is a story about white dudes in a country full of brown dudes. This is brought shockingly home in a plot turn which involves Emilio (Tito Renaldo), son of boat owner Pablo (Martin Garralaga), losing his life while trying to save Rigby from a shark. Instead of treating Pablo as a grieving dad, Rigby behaves as if this is something that can just be added to his bill.
Talking of which, just why is the FBI in this foreign country? What jurisdiction does Rigby have? None at all, surely.
Chew on these indicators of America at its most expansively colonial while the film itself shifts into farcical whodunit territory – though minus the jokes. As Rigby tries to work out who the crooked import/export trader is, people are forever entering and leaving rooms or sneaking down corridors as the death toll continues to rise.
Vincente Minnelli directed the big carnival/fireworks finale, when the film shifts tone yet again. But it’s Robert Z Leonard who’s in charge for most of it. He leaves the multi-Oscar-winning Joseph Ruttenberg to drape everything in noirish shadows. The film’s look and its sense of grime and sweat is really its big achievement.
A flop on its release, The Bribe’s reputation has grown over the years, thanks to Ruttenberg’s input to a large extent, and Laughton, whose magnificently shabby JJ Bealer, the “pie-shaped man”, is to this film what Sydney Greenstreet was to Casablanca, its focus of all things off-centre.
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© Steve Morrissey 2026
