B.J.

Pepe Le Moko is a great film role. Jean Gabin introduced the character to screen in the same named French Flick in 1937.

Charles Boyer brought the moody mobster to Hollywood's ALGIERS in 1938.

But in 1948, Tony Martin and director John Berry collaborated to create the most dramatic and entertaining version of the downfall of the exiled jewel thief in CASBAH.

Casbah is a film very alive with energy, style, suspense and romance. Brilliant casting; Tony Martin plays the suave thief with easy conviction and delivers the Harold Arlen songs skill, charm and gusto.

Marta Toren was arguably the most beautiful woman in films, prior to the arrival of Audrey Hepburn.

Peter Lorre...I can't believe how powerful his complex performance is as the dedicated policeman, committed to the capture of the thief who became also his friend.

Yvonne De Carlo, Douglas Dick, Katherine Dunham, acting, singing, dancing, love, passion, treachery...where is this great film on DVD? John Berry and Jules Dassin were contemporary artists and spirits. Their films even show a similarity of style and influence, possibly each upon the other.

They were also fingered as American Pinko Fellow Travelers right about this time and both moved to England. Dassin prevailed and prospered, probably with some initial support from Darryl F. Zanuck. Berry also prevailed, but without achieving anything like Dassin's level of success or recognition. Still, CASBAH, for my money is, value for value, the most under-acknowledged film out of Hollywood.

This Swiss movie, originally made for TV, was dismissed by Durrenmatt because he felt it didn't probe deeply enough into the driven character of the Inspector. I totally disagree with him. This version is powerfully realized and stunningly acted. Durrenmatt's literary version, The Pledge, undercuts the power of the theme and registers the Inspector's commitment as hollow and pointless. The American movie version of the Pledge was a conceptual, execution and box-office disaster.

What Durrenmatt does in The Pledge is to book-end this satisfying story with a narrative overlay that only revokes all the drama and suspense of the central story. This is as pointless and destructive as book-end CASABLANCA with a narrator that claims that Rick was really a scoundrel working for the Nazis the whole time.

What can be said about the most emotionally wrenching, tear jerking, armrest gripping movie in reasonable memory? CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS is not for everybody. It is too rich, powerful and complex an experience for everybody. I don't know to whom I would recommend this movie. Not to persons who are members of a family. Maybe just to police and judicial authorities. Some good, at least, might come of that.