danielj_old999

(Marta Toren to Bogie)....what a great line! I'm surprised it hasn't gone down in the lexicon of great movie quips...and it captures perfectly the paradoxical mystery of Bogie's eternal charm, as well as the mystery of how an essentially mediocre film can be redeemed by its own dry, sardonic charm (due largely to help from fine supporting players as much as from Bogie), some great B/W photography, and a persistently downbeat refusal to push any sort of patriotic agenda.(adding greatly to that charm quotient.) The postwar noir influence is in fine fettle here. So Bogie doesn't exactly have a great motivation for his final decision? He just changed his mind, that's all. Take it or leave it. "I've taken long chances before. Okay." What could be better than that? It's the way people act every day. Every good critical eye without a mote in it knows that this film is safely and securely within the universe of the best product Hollywood ever put out, a great, mordant, counterweight universe to the unwatchable sap they themselves were producing right alongside it. "Sirocco" is not even really that minor a star in that universe. Good, good, good.

I saw this on network TV in 1980, must have been some kind of freak filler and it blew me away, I was amazed by the tight direction of Wanamaker, wow, gee whiz, and this was the prime of my buddy Burt, makes me wonder how many great pilots are locked away in vaults only awaiting the day of judgment when they are all unlocked and facing their maker, not their TV maker but the big maker, and judged, this one's going on the right hand of god, by God, I wrote Burt a fan letter about this episode, like the best TV film noir I ever saw...probably as good as the live TV of the 1950s except honed to a knife edge of perfection, like I said, you'll never see this but I did and I'm glad.

One of the great opening scenes of any Hollywood movie projects a kind of cinematic/theatrical authority in a league with O'Neill or Odets, first we see the black man, filled with jolly self denial, buffing the crap tables, his tragedy is implicit from the first moment, believing in his heart that he is on a social par with the other white employees... and with quick, methodical grace the other supporting characters are sharply introduced - they're waiting for lefty, or godot,or the Iceman, or their savior,who happens to be Gable in one of his greatest roles...this is the refined essence of that great personality on screen...the man could simply manufacture chemistry not only with his leading ladies but with other men as well...too bad the crisp, exciting climax at the crap table does not quite live up to this glorious existential opening but it's still an eminently enjoyable Hollywood wrap up..one of the most underrated MGM movies.