Passage pour Marseille

While much has been made of the flashback within a flashback utilized in the movie, one shouldn't overlook the great action sequences, particularly towards the end, that have you cheering on the French heroes in the film. Sure, Humphrey Bogart doesn't attempt a French accent, but just look at films where he didn't attempt a foreign accent and how disasters they were (what was that James Cagney Western where Bogie was supposed to speak with a Spanish accent? I still cringe at the thought of it.) But it doesn't affect his acting in the lead role. After all, Clark Gable didn't put on a Southern accent for "God With The Wind" and I didn't hurt his work in that masterpiece.

This is no masterpiece and it is difficult to follow sometimes, but just to see Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet and Claude Raines work is worth it. This

Again, many people have mentioned in the war crime Bogart commits in the film, but when I saw the supposed offending part, I had no problem with it. And I'm no conservative when it comes to such things normally, but the "crime" is against ruthless that these who had no such reservations about the rules of war.

"Casablanca" is an entirely different film and it is unfair to compare this one to that one just because it has the same director and many of the same cast members. This is a rousing piece of war propaganda that gets the audience involved and I liked it very much. There is even an emotional element to it and unlike "Casablanca," it does not feel studio bound with even some believable exterior shots. I give it seven out of ten for the action alone.

Wartime heroics never seemed exploited in quite so complex a fashion as "Passage to Marseille," directed by Michael Curtiz…

Bogart, a French journalist framed for murder because of his political views and sent to Devil's Island during World War II, escapes from his penal hell with four other convicts and winds up on a French freighter bound for home… Hoping to rejoin the fighting Free French resistance movement, the men, all fiercely loyal patriots, become involved in preventing a takeover of the ship by Fascist sympathizers…

This relatively simple plot line is then surrounded by a series of extraneous plots and subplots which were related in a series of single, double, and even triple flashbacks, making any semblance of coherency virtually impossible…

Bogart's characterization is equally vague and complicated as he maintained an opposing balance of virtue and vice… At one moment he is the picture of idealistic moral righteousness fighting against a callous system, and the next he debased his human nature as he brutally machine-guns some defenseless enemies… His moral platitudes do not balance his immoral behavior, making for ambiguity and confusion...

The most important saving grace of "Passage to Marseille" is the supporting cast headed by Bogart's "Casablanca" co-stars Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre, who all turned in strong character portrayals

On the horizon a canoe that's a small crew, without sustenance, they're all just about through, the Ville de Nancy brings them in, a war wages from Berlin, through several flashbacks there's a story that comes through. As it transpires that they've escaped from Devil's Island, they are keen to get to France to fight for their land, but a Vichy sympathiser, and his sycophant adviser, try to scupper this bedraggled, ragged band. It's not the greatest film with folks you may admire, Sydney has an odd accent, that's rather dire, but generally it's fine, as they sail across the brine, you can tick it off your list if you require.

Quite a good film. I didn't have any trouble following the flashback-in-a-flashback scheme. Bogart was Bogart. What can you say? Greenstreet and Lorre were good. Claude Rains was excellent. Apparently, some people are upset at this film because it isn't "Casablanca". I don't really think it tried to be. It was probably just that the actors and director liked working together, and if that sold more tickets, well, no one would complain. Clint Eastwood and Woody Allen frequently cast their films with the same actors, presumably friends (and lovers), and no one thinks twice about it.

I think some people have been unduly unfair on this film.

There is quite a complex sequence of flashbacks. But as a matter of fact, I didn't find them at all difficult to follow. My brain only hurts when I try to work it out afterwards. Maybe it's another of those things which work better in a cinema than on TV.

There is a scene where Bogart's character commits a war crime. I think we have to remember that Bogart did not always play saintly characters. He was not exactly saintly in the "Maltese Falcon" or "Casablanca". He was even less saintly in "The Caine Mutiny". I am sure that the audience in 1944 would have been shocked by the war crime just as we are

now; even Nazi propaganda sometimes emphasised the importance of being gentlemanly to prisoners. The easy and boring option would have been for

Bogart to play the all-American (or all-French) hero throughout; I find it

more interesting that in this case he isn't. I think the circumstances to some extent explain what Bogart's character does. The fact is war crimes happen in war. They happened then, and they happen now, and the perpetrators are not as through-and-through evil (or different from us) as we would like to think.

I agree with those who say this film is not as good as "Casablanca" or the "Maltese Falcon". The plot is a lot more lumpy and uneven than those films. But I've seen those two films several times already, and I can't watch them every night. "Passage to Marseille" is worth at least one viewing. In fact I would like to see it again, if I get a chance.