Written by David Yallop
Directed by Bernard Rose

This is one of those movies that had the potential to be very, very good. Unfortunately, director Bernard Rose takes the script, which is already blending reality with fiction, and tries to create distorted images of reality versus fiction. The result is a film that’s confusing at the very least.

In London during the Second World War, an American G.I. named Ricky Allen (portrayed by Kiefer Sutherland) meets Georgina Grayson (portrayed by Emily Lloyd), who is an aspiring actress and showgirl. Both of them seem to have trouble staying grounded in reality, and their own fantasies take over from time to time. Just as Georgina has changed her name from Betty Jones to suit the showgirl fantasy, she also begins to change who Ricky is in her mind. To her, Ricky is really “Chicago Joe” and has been sent to London at the behest of his gangster boss, who pulled strings to have him posted there. It seems to be a fantasy spurred by the gangster films of the American cinema that have probably been an all too prevalent part of the girl’s life.

Joe is no innocent, having gone AWOL and stealing a truck. When the two are together, they feed off of each other’s criminal nature, ratcheting up the intensity of the crimes they commit. What starts out as petty theft ends in something much more serious.

The movie is based on real events that took place in London near the end of the Second World War, the Karl Hulton/Elizabeth Maud Jones murder case. This could be quite an interesting film about the effects that the American cinema and American G.I.s had on London during this period. Couple that with two people with tenuous grips on reality to begin with, and it sounds quite promising.

Unfortunately, with the blending of reality and fantasy, Chicago Joe and the Showgirl becomes quite muddy and confusing. Sutherland and Lloyd are playing four roles instead of two. To complicate things even more, Joe has a clueless girlfriend, Joyce (portrayed by Patsy Kensit). With all of the back and forth between his criminal world with Betty, plus his time with Joyce, plus the fantasy sequences, the movie made no sense. It was difficult for me to follow who the girls were. At first, I thought they were the same girl with just a sort of Jekyll & Hyde personality, and changing the hair color to match the different personalities.

If Chicago Joe and the Showgirl originally intended to capture the spirit of Bonnie and Clyde on the other side of the pond, it fails miserably. Sutherland is early in his career here and doesn’t carry the role all that well. Most of the time, he seems more like a fish out of water rather than a dangerous criminal. Sutherland is neither charming nor dangerous in the role, instead coming off as a selfish weakling. Lloyd is nowhere near believable as a sex-kitten-like showgirl who has trouble separating life from fiction. Kensit had the potential to be the strongest character, but it was terribly underwritten and underdeveloped. The entire subplot involving her and her family seems almost pointless, only showing how duplicitous Ricky is, and that’s something that is immediately evident in how he plays Georgina for sex.

The sets are just that – sets. Instead of shooting on location, Chicago Joe and the Showgirl was filmed completely on soundstages and really fails to capture the tone of wartime London.

Chicago Joe and the Showgirl fails because it tries too hard to impress the audience, rather than just making a good movie. The tale and setting could have been interesting if handled much differently, rather than becoming a confusing blend of fantasy and reality.