Spion im Orientexpress

International intrigue in hot spot Ankara, Turkey, during World War II is the center of this secret agent tail. Nasty Nazi Dr. Robinson (Sydney Greenstreet) plots to use lies in the press to push Turkey to ally itself with Germany against Russia. American Joe Barton (George Raft) is posing as a businessman when he falls into possession of falsified documents the Germans want printed in a sympathizing newspaper. Barton is soon mixed up with the Zaleshoffs (Peter Lorre and Brenda Marshall), a brother and sister claiming to be Russian spies who are after the same documents. Barton has trouble believing anyone, because they all attack him at various times and at least one of them is a cold-blooded killer. The plot had potential, but director Raoul Walsh did not seem to know quite what to do with a story of this nature and there is a complete lack of real emotion in the proceedings. He also seemed to be saddled with a low budget (the miniature train is painfully obvious). His three male stars all but play caricatures of themselves. Raft is all buttoned up and monosyllabic, Greenstreet is almost a cartoon, and Lorre chews the scenery and comes out best. Yet it is still a pretty good movie (if you can withstand being yelled out for the first five minutes and the overcooked musical scoring.) There is a great aura of suspicion over everyone, which leaves you guessing at everyone's connection with everyone else. There is also a great car chase, noir cinematography from Tony Gaudio that caresses Raft's closeups fondly, and some good visual bits that will make you smile.

Nicely paced WW2 spy thriller with George Raft playing an American agent trying to stop a German plan to turn Turkey against Russia. It's an ill-fitting role for Raft but I can't say he was terrible. I always liked him, even if he could be a pretty wooden actor sometimes. This is the kind of role I could easily see Bogart playing, which is ironic considering George Raft notoriously turned down some of the parts that made Bogart's career, such as Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. This movie also marked the end of Raft's contract with Warner Bros, which effectively meant the beginning of the end of his days as an A-lister.

The fairly short runtime helps, as does the great supporting cast. Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet are always worth watching. Lovely Brenda Marshall and Ona Massen are good, too. Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I thought this was a very enjoyable movie of its type. I'm sure if you dislike Raft you will find it tougher going than I did. If you're a fan of the cast or WW2 movies in general, I definitely recommend you try this one out.

It's 1942. The main powers are trying to persuade neutral Turkey on their side. There is a bomb attempt on German ambassador Franz von Papen. It's actually a scheme by Nazi Colonel Robinson and it fails when the Russians show their airtight alibis. Now, he comes up with another scheme. Meanwhile on a train to Turkey, American businessman Joe Barton (George Raft) is taken with mysterious stranger Ana Remzi who pulls him into a world of espionage with Soviet spy Nikolai Zaleshoff (Peter Lorre) and his sister Tamara Zaleshoff (Brenda Marshall).

I love that I can't trust or distrust Peter Lorre at any time. The only thing that I can trust is that everybody has their own interest at heart. Lorre is the best part of this movie. He is stealing every scene he's in. There are evil Nazis. Raft is a functional everyman. The action could be better but it's par for the course in its time. The scheme is not nearly complicated enough. Quite frankly, fake news could be done in many ways. Overall, it's a solid wartime spy thriller.

It's now part of Hollywood lore how George Raft immeasurably aided the career of Humphrey Bogart by turning down High Sierra, The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. After the last one I guess Raft thought he'd go for a Casablanca type story and the film of Eric Ambler's Background to Danger seemed like a good bet. If working with Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre worked for Bogey...........

Background to Danger only confirmed Raft's wisdom about trying to stick to what he could handle. Had he been in Casablanca, the film today would be a routine action adventure picture not the cinema classic it is.

According to a biography of Raft, Peter Lorre was stealing scenes all over the place and blew cigarette smoke in Raft's face causing him to lose concentration. After repeated requests to stop doing it, Raft clocked Lorre on the chin and that settled the problems they had. On the set that is, on screen Raft registers no presence at all with his fabled co-stars.

Raft is an American agent, Greenstreet a Nazi, and Brenda Marshall and Lorre are a brother and sister team of Soviet agents all looking for a forged document about false Soviet invasion plans for Turkey. The action starts in Turkey's capital of Ankara and ends up in the city of Istanbul.

Background to Danger had to be the first American made film based in Ankara. Before the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire, Ankara barely passed for an oasis. Mustapha Kemal selected it for his capital because of its central location on the Anatolian peninsula. The city grew exponentially between the wars and Turkish neutrality in World War II kept up the growth rate though the Ankara we see here is depicted on the back lot of Warner Brothers studio.

All the neutral capitals in the World War II years were good subjects for espionage films. Everyone of them could have been described like Ankara as a city of a thousand plots. Too bad a better film couldn't have been done here.

I liked this film although there were certainly many better for the time. It is the usual war time movie without being too much like the rest.

How can you go wrong watching Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre together? Greenstreet is simply magnetic, and I was stunned to find out he debuted in films with Casablanca only a year before.

I kept thinking during the movie how much better it would have been with someone else besides Raft in the title role, he is pretty wooden. I am not sure where his performance ranks with his other roles. I hope they were better but doubt that they were. I don't watch many of them normally.

Brenda Marshall provides window dressing mostly and the ending smacks of a cheap knockoff attempt, but the rest wasn't too bad.