Istanbul

After reading some moderately positive reviews here I approached watching Istanbul with some optimism. I remembered fondly Errol Flynn's late-career turn as "Mike Campbell" in the film version of Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises". Although too old for the part, he put in a fantastic performance and was the only actor in that film who truly "got" his character from that great novel. Sadly here he is listless throughout whether fighting or romancing or anything. Cornell Borchers plays the love interest done up as Ingrid Bergman but with little of the charisma. As an aside Peggy Knudsen ("Mona Mars" from "The Big Sleep") plays the distaff side of a crass American tourist couple. The roles are played in the manner of Ralph and Alice from "The Honeymooners" and it jars greatly to a modern taste showing yet again that the past is a foreign country. The plot involving lost love and diamond smuggling is ho-hum and the overall entertainment value is passable only.

In a mash-up of various Humphrey Bogart starring vehicles, Errol Flynn is a pilot in Istanbul who falls in love with Cornell Borchers and some smuggled diamonds. Then there's a fire, the diamonds are lost, Miss Borchers is dead and Flynn flies off for half a decade. When he returns, he goes about recovering the diamonds, and runs into Miss Borchers, who's amnesiac and married to Torin Thatcher.

And so it goes. There's a singing piano player -- it's Nat King Cole performing his hit version of "When I Fall in Love", Werner Klemperer as a sociopath who breaks into rooms and crawls when he isn't slinging knives, John Bentley as a Turkish Inspector -- non-corrupt -- and other echoes of Bogey. The one original note in the script is Leif Erickson and Peggy Knudsen as a bickering Ugly American couple, and a welcome change it is, to know that fifteen years after Huston et al. perfected the Bogart persona, there was still something to add to the tales of international intrigue besides some filming in Turkey.

In short, there's certainly nothing wrong with the movie, as had been demonstrated the last fifteen times it had been made.

Istanbul and the associated reviews are really interesting. Yes it is a bit cliché'd and yes some of the characters are one dimensional. Errol Flynn's acting is unique and there are clearly attempts to refer to film noir (even though this a colour film) and there is an attempt by the film studio to lay this film over the moral dilemma of Casablanca and throw in Nat King Cole and "when I fall in love" as a replacement for Dooley Wilson and Time Goes by. But let us not forget films cost a significant amount of money to make and studios are stupid and they feel that they have to piggy back the film's selling point with another film's Unique selling point...see Altman's The Player....if you need proof.

But actually the pull of this film's USP, namely the love interest's amnesia and Errol Flynn's affection for her are quite striking. The diamond smuggling sub plot works to a degree albeit the villains, as one reviewer says, are rather thinly drawn.

What I found interesting as well was 1950's view of women. There was no depth to the relationship between the lead characters just a suggestion of something deep and intense going on. However floating on a love boat in the Bosphorus was all that explained this "love". Also the potential life after the successful acquisition of the diamonds was hinted without any explanation...and the lead female's new life was ugly to the 21st century mind...a suggestion that she would look after Mr Fielding, (presumably cooking, looking nice and proving oral sex) and in return he would feed and clothe her and take her to places like Istanbul, was contrasted with Marge and her husband, where the husband dished out a black eye because Marge might have been tempted by a Frenchman who would have gone with her to see Hamlet in Turkish was almost risible.

But I stuck with this film to the end and enjoyed the mild threat and laughed at the cloak and dagger stuff........no it's not great but it is worth watching.

Fairly good movie with some similarities to Casablanca including a song comparable to 'As Time Goes By' sung by the leading man's black sidekick.

Nat Cole was one of the greatest song stylists ever, and the way he caresses 'When I Fall In Love' is something to behold. As an actor he was just fair, but when he sings at the piano even Errol Flynn pays him an envious compliment.

Cornell Borchers is pretty but doesn't jump off the screen like Ingrid Bergman. Flynn is good but shows the beginnings of his alcohol induced physical slide that led to his premature death in 1959.

When the pilot James Brennan (Errol Flynn) returns to Istanbul, the local Inspector Nural (John Bentley) questions him in the airport about the objective of his voyage and also about some missing diamonds. James checks in the hotel and asks for his former room 424; however he goes to the bar to drink vodka, where he recalls his love affair with Stephanie Bauer (Cornell Borchers) five years ago. James and Stephanie are in love for each other; when James travels to Cairo with his plane transporting some cargo for a client, he visits his friend Aziz Rakim (Vladimir Sokoloff) to buy a wedding gift for Stephanie since he intends to propose her. Aziz sells an expensive bracelet for US$ 50.00 only, and when James returns to Istanbul, he finds two hundred thousand dollars in diamonds hidden inside the bracelet. But the gang of Mr. Darius (Martin Benson) chases the smuggled diamonds with James, who denies the existence of the stones. The criminals attack Stephanie in her apartment and when her building is on fire, she disappears and her body is never identified. On the present days, while in the hotel trying to retrieve the diamonds hidden in the ventilator of his former room, James sees Stephanie and she claims to be Karen Fielding and well-married with Douglas Fielding (Torin Thatcher). James tries to help Stephanie to recall who she is while Darius's gangsters chase him seeking the diamonds.

"Istanbul" is a moralist and dated love story, but also entertaining. The music score is fantastic, probably the best in this movie, with the awesome Nat King Cole singing "When I fall in Love". The story has many similarities that slightly recall the masterpiece "Casablanca", like for example, the lead character missing a lost love that reappears some time later with another man; a wonderful song (in Casablanca, the stunning "As Time Goes By" by Dooley Wilson); the tickets are replaced by smuggled diamonds; there is an inspector chasing the lead character. Therefore, the story is visibly inspired but without the charming of "Casablanca" and with a conclusion too corny for my taste. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Istambul" ("Istanbul")