A Yank in Libya

This gloriously silly "rah rah" America film was made right after the American entry in World War 2. Its a wild romp with a jerk for a lead but enough jokes action and mismatched stock footage to be a great deal of fun in the right frame of mind.

This is the story of Mike Malone an American reporter in Libya. He comes upon a plot of the Nazi's to arm the Arabs and fight the British. He steals a rifle and high tails it back to the nearest city. He crashes into the room of a nice "British" girl, leaves her the gun and then heads out the window, telling her to hide the gun from pursuing Arabs. Malone goes to the British consulate where he's thought balmy, doubly so after a visit to the girl turns up no gun. Malone then struggles to prove his story, while the British try to prevent the Arab uprising and keep an eye on the German in their midst.

This movie is very funny, often for the wrong reasons. Malone, played by Walter Woolf King, is the worst an American be: cocksure, boorish, a jerk and insufferable. He's horribly unlikeable and comes close to sinking the movie, but he doesn't mostly because he's so over inflated as to be a joke. He is nicely counter balanced by the rest of the cast who are damn near spot in their portrayals of what should be cardboard characters. Clearly they are going to go for it even if the buffoon in the middle isn't. I have to single out Harry Parke aka Parkyarkarkus, as a guy from Brooklyn posing as an Arab razor blade salesman. Parke is a joy to be hold as a calm cool man of action and witty remarks. Clearly he knows whats going on even when everyone else doesn't. The character of Parkyarkarkus was Parke's patented character from radio and he's basically doing the same shtick here to great effect. (A side note: Parke, real last name Einstein, is not only known for fathering Super Dave Osbourne and Albert Brooks, but also dropping dead in Milton Berle's lap during a Friar's roast of Lucille Ball).

Technically this movie is a mess. Clearly shot on stages and back lots, it also makes a great deal of stock footage, none of which matches any of the other footage in the film. It makes for a "bigger" movie but often surreal effect as in the case of a bar room brawl that suddenly is in a room three times the size it started in and involves ten times more people. Its funny for all the wrong reasons.

And I really liked this movie. There is something so loopy about it that made me like it infinitely more than I should have. Its not a great movie but some how the plot is involving and the knowing humor takes enough of the edge off the crappy parts that you really don't mind its low rent birth.

Worth a bucket of popcorn and a soda.

8 out of 10 if you're in the right frame of mind. 5 out of 10 if you're not.

Mike Malone is an obnoxious and stupid American reporter who, inexplicably, is hanging out under cover in Libya! He's boorish and stupid--which is a nice match, as all the rest of the folks in the film are really dumb. Because of this, the whole gun smuggling and Nazi infiltrator angles just don't make a lot of sense and the film leaves you wondering WHAT you've just seen! "A Yank in Libya" is a horrible movie and I have no idea why most of the reviews are so kind to this mess of a film. The only good thing about it is that the film can be fun to watch because it is so incredibly stupid!

When the movie begins, you can see that the footage they're using of a desert scene is old re-used footage. It's grainy but more importantly, since it was from a silent film (which runs at a different speed than a sound film) the footage is too fast. As you watch the film, again and again you notice this, as the filmmakers actually just spliced up an old movie and inserted a few new scenes into it to make an all-new picture. Clever? Not really, as it's very obvious AND the new scenes are just god-awful--mostly due to the script having been written by a couple of chimps! Again and again, the dialog is just awful (a nice example is the line "why I'd be a cock-eyed whirling dervish...") and the plot just doesn't make any sense (one guy is shot from only a few feet away and is dead...but later, with no explanation, he's very alive and quite well!). The bottom line is that this terrible B-movie is so terrible that it actually could be seen as funny to bad movie buffs- -but all others stay clear!

This was released in july of 1942, so the united states had just been yanked into the war by japan. Right at the start, there's a warning about content that may be objectionable to some, but should be kept in the context of the time it was made. The only name I recognize here is hb warner, who was in so many huge films, even nominated for lost horizon. Funny guy parkyarkarkus is in here, but credited as harry einstein. When loud, blustery, newspaper reporter malone gets caught up in a mixup between the nazis and the arabs in libya, he doesn't realize the complications he has started. Malone tries to enlist the help of nancy brooks, but she's not falling for it. Mr. Forbes at the british consulate may or may not know more than he is telling. It's not the tightest story, and it was made by the producers releasing corporation, one of the lowest budget studios in the 1940s. It's very okay. I don't think anyone was too proud of this work. It rambles all over the place, and was not at all respectful to other cultures. Parkyarkarkus died pretty young at 54. Film directed by al herman. I've seen a couple of his films from the 1940s. He had made tons of short films with mickey rooney and billy barty, starting as silents in the 1920s. Fun reference to camel cigarettes about halfway through; camel cigarettes had been around since 1913!

Although this film stars H.B. Warner, he is certainly not the central character, that role being fulfilled by Walter Woolf King, a little known actor, who portrays an American war correspondent who has unearthed a Nazi plot to foment a rebellion among the Arab tribes. In fact, Warner's part is rather minor. The story is pedestrian but the acting is good. There is not much big action, the only scenes promising it being at the end of the film, but, it doesn't come off. The chief of the attacking Arabs, making a sudden recovery from a Luger bullet at close range, prevents it. It turns out a small medallion on his chest stopped the bullet!

Neither Leonard Maltin nor Martin and Porter list this film in their filmograhies. I got it on DVD in a budget set of eight "War Classics". The plot of a Nazi conspiracy to foment a revolt of the Arab tribes in Libya is the nearest it gets to WWII. The sheik is played by Duncan Renaldo, perhaps better known as the Cisco Kid both in film and on TV. The Arab villain is portrayed by the prolific George J. Lewis with whom any fan of serials would be familiar, being a stock villain in that genre. He only appeared in about 260 films! Some comic relief is supplied by Parkyakarkas posing as an Arab selling razor blades!

Little know war movie set in Libya during the German advance toward the Egypitan cities of Alexandria and Cairo in the fateful summer of 1942.

Yossof Streyer, Wilhelm Von Brincken, masquerading around as a Czech running the Streyer Importing & Exporting Co. in the Lybian city of El-Mocha. Streyer really is a German spy who's importing thousands of German Mauser rifles to arm the Arab tribesmen and incite them to revolt against the occupying British helping Rommel and his Afrika Corp take over Lybia Egypt and the Suez Canal.

In pops American reporter Mike Malone, Walter Wolf King, looking for the big scoop and almost single handed loses the war in North Africa for the allies by his obnoxious actions. Malone soon gets his later girlfriend and fiancée Nancy Brooks, Joan Woodbury,almost killed when he breaks into her house and leaves a German Mauser rifle that he stole from the perusing Arabs on her sofa. The jerk takes off leaving Nacy holding the bag, or rifle, and almost certain death at the hands of the vengeful Arabs. The only reason that Nancy was speared was that the leader of the Arab tribesmen is the good and kind Sheik David, Duncan Renaldo, who's also in love with her.

Malone keeps getting into trouble all through the film by being so ridicules and rude towards the local Arabs that he's put in prison by the British just to keep him from starting a revolt against them even without German help. Putting on a fake clip-on beard as a disguise the British police have no trouble at all recognizing him and grab Malone and put him behind bars for his own protection. Malone is helped to escape from the jail, fake beard and all, by Parkyakarkus a Brooklyn N.Y native who ended up in El-Mocha trying to sell razor blades, to the Muslem men who don't shave, and local belly dancer Haditha, Amarilla Morris. Malone is caught later by the Arabs when he and Parkyakarkus went back to the cave where the Arabs had the German rifles hidden, Parkyakarkus escaped.

Just wen he's about to be done in by Sheik David's second in command the villainous Sheik Ibrahim Malone is saved by David and Joan who just happened to be with him in his tent when his execution was about to take place. Meanwhile Streyer, who's bankrolling the Arab revolt,is getting sick and tired of the good Sheik David stalling the revolt and during a heated exchange with him pulls a gun out and shots him dead.

With now the German controlled Sheik Ibrahim in charge the Arabs revolt and storm the city of El-Mocha but all of a sudden the dead Sheik David appears alive and calls for peace not war with the British. It was a medal that David had on him, that was handed down to him by his father who it was handed to by his grandfather, that was very close to his heart that took Streyer's bullet thus saving his life.

The shocked Sheik Ibrahim, as well as Streyer, pulls a gun out to shoot David but is shot and killed by Malone who beat him to the draw, Ibrahim was so slow in pulling out his gun that by the time he pulled the trigger the movie would have long been over.

Streyer running into his office is shot and killed, off screen, by none other the the clownish Paryakarkus who turned to be an undercover agent for US military intelligence and just like that the Arab revolt was over.

I found the American reporter in the movie Mike Malone really annoying the way he acted as if he knew the outcome of the movie, by reading the script ahead of time, and saw that nothing would happen to him and thus acted accordingly, like a first class jerk, and almost got all the good guys in the movie "A Yank in Lybia" killed.