Nei Meandri della Casbah

Maybe be a piece of fluffy propaganda, but it's an enjoyable adventure movie, with a suitable spunky American heroine and a charming British spy. Part of the plot takes place in Alger Casbah, like Pépé le Moko but on a smaller scale. A sweet but determined French girl named Yvette makes an impression, thanks to her small role of the doomed lover.

I rated this film 6/10 having discovered it in a rare film emporium in Camden Market, North London, last Sunday.I am a forties film aficionado but had never seen this title before.One thing British/American films constantly do in war films is to assume all German/French characters speak fluent English (to make it easy on audiences who will mostly only speak this language), and this film was no exception, (although marginally less so than most US 40s films of the time).What is especially laughable is when German characters speak in English to other German characters!On the other hand, this 1944 film did not take itself too seriously especially the end scene, when Carla Lehmann describes to James Mason how Hollywood would have filmed the self same scene, (all done to keep up the nation's morale!).A more enlightened treatment of showing various European languages on film is for producers to hire actors German/French who can speak in their own native tongue but then show English sub-titles for that part of the plot as in Darryl F Zanuck's ground breaking epic, "The Longest Day" (1962).

The two US reviewers above seemed to have enjoyed this film, so I suppose it served its purpose however I could not award it more than just above an adequate rating.

"Candlelight in Algeria" is, by my standards, a superior noir adventure which concerns a secret conference being held, despite danger, in Algeria during WWII. The protagonist is an American girl from Kansas--a reference to Dorothy's line in the"Wizard of Oz" (1939) "I guess we're not in Kansas any more." She is staying with relatives and falls in with a spy, ably played by the powerful James Mason. The body of this brilliantly suspenseful film then falls into important episodes, involving a dangerous theft, misunderstandings, a major confrontation with the Nazi's chief investigator, and a thrilling flight leading to the final action--one in which Mason risks his life to divert the Nazis and their coerced French partners from disrupting the conference. The film is told in an envelope flashback by the heroine, Lehman, in a hospital, wondering whether Mason is alive or dead. George King directed most skillfully, from a script by Dorothy Hope, John Clements, Katharine Strueby and Brock Williams. The film was produced by John Stafford with original music by Roy Douglas and James Turner and award- level cinematography by Otto Heller. The fine art direction was done by Norman G. Arnold. In the above-average cast, Carla Lehman was charismatic and intelligent as the American girl, and James Mason more than excellent as the solider-spy who enlists her before falling in love with her. Walter Rilla plays a most intelligent spy master, Dr, Muller; Raymond Lovell and Enid Stamp-Taylor are used for comedy. Offbeat Pamela Stirling as Yvette and the rest of the cast are all more than adequate. A classic chase and hiding out in the Casbah is given touches of humor, without ever losing its interesting edge as it pits suave Brit Mason against brave but naive neo-puritan USer, Lehman. Look for the interrogation scenes, the Algiers' hideout scenes and the climactic, intelligent chase sequence, among others. This is a film worth watching many times, and for many values, I suggest. It was often imitated afterward but seldom equaled.

Carla Lehmann wakes in a hospital in North Africa, where she tells a nursing sister of how she met British spy James Mason, stole a camera in Algiers for him and outwitted various nasty Nazis to save the landings at Oran in North Africa.

It's a good, breezy movie directed by George King, who just half a decade earlier had been directed melodramas starring Tod Browning. Now he was telling James Mason, one of Britain's biggest home-grown stars of the period what to do. Mason, however, is not the subject of the movie, and is present for about half of it. Instead, Canadian-born Miss Lehmann carries the show as a quick-witted sculptress from Kansas. She's pretty good, even though the net effect of this movie is a hands-across-the-seas programmer from, say, Universal. The plot borrows liberally from other movies. There's an extensive Casbah segment that suggests PEPE LE MOKO, and a local girl hopelessly in love with Mason, played charmingly by Pamela Stirling; Walter Rilla plays the baddie, even though there isn't much menace in performance; and the Americans are represented, not only by Miss Lehmann, but Bart Norman playing General Mark Clark!

Mason didn't think much of the movie. He later noted that after the war, it was a hit in Bulgaria. Perhaps it's because he wore a mustache for the first half of it.

British spy Alan Thurston (Mason) is trying to get hold of a camera to bring to the British Consulate in Algiers. It has pictures of the location of a top-secret meeting place of the Allied commanders regarding the invasion of North Africa. Tailing him is RNO (repugnant Nazi official) Dr. Muller, who knows of the camera. Thurston breaks into the Algerian residence of American civilian Susan Foster (Carla Lehmann), with Muller in hot pursuit. Thurston persuades her to help him in his quest for the camera, since he is too notorious and would be arrested on sight in Algiers. There then follows a tense and taut cat-and-mouse game with Nazi officials and our two co-heroes.

The picture is extremely well-done and the suspense doesn't let up for the entire 82 minutes (by my watch). There is a romantic interlude in The Casbah, where Thurston has sought refuge and has taken Ms. Foster, reminiscent of 'Pepe Le Moko", in which similar circumstances occur. Ms. Foster, it turns out, is from Kansas, fulfilling the prophesy of my headline. Walter Rilla plays Dr. Muller in despicable fashion, a Nazi civilian official feared by everyone in the picture except Thurston.

Despite the grim circumstances the mood of the picture ranges from deadly serious to lighthearted, especially during exchanges between Mason and Lehmann (the deadly serious passages belong to Rilla). I agree with a reviewer above that Mason was a dashing adventure hero - too bad he became typecast as humorless and overbearing. I don't understand why this movie is so lightly regarded and why it hasn't been shown on TV or in revival houses. Note to IMDb directors: Your rating is too low. It is better than a similar movie, "Five Graves To Cairo", made the previous year. You should at least use the median figure instead of the weighted one.