Cap sur Marseille

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.

Pretty cool WWII story, told mostly through flashbacks, about French convicts led by Humphrey Bogart who escape from Devil's Island to go help their country fight the Nazis. The men are picked up by a freighter bound for home and must deal with slimy Sydney Greenstreet, who isn't particularly opposed to the idea of a Nazi-occupied France.

Reunites Casablanca costars Bogart, Rains, Lorre, and Greenstreet with director Michael Curtiz. In many ways, this could be seen as a possible sequel to Casablanca, though certainly not in that film's league. I could see where you could rework the story to be about Rick, Ilsa, and Louis' post-Casablanca story. Cute use of models in early scene where the war correspondent arrives to speak with Claude Rains. This movie is slammed a lot for its use of the flashback-within-a-flashback-within-a-flashback technique. Normally I'm not a fan of that myself but here I didn't think it was confusing like critics claim. The ending is kind of depressing but realistic. War is hell, after all.

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.

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.

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.