Au bord du volcan

Van Johnson stars with Martine Carol and Herbert Lom in "Action of the Tiger" from 1957. Sean Connery has a small role.

Johnson plays Carson, an American contraband runner in Greece who is approached by a beautiful woman, Tracy (Carol) who wants to pay him to take her to Communist Albania. She will only say she has to see someone there. He is categorically not interested. His conscience won't let him - even if she arrives there, she won't get out alive.

Later, Carson and his buddy Mike have to flee the police when they become involved in a drunken brawl. They board Carson's boat - and there is Tracy. They finally agree on a $10,000 price to leave her ashore in Albania. He has to return with cargo - perishable, he says, so he can't be there for long.

In Albania, Carson arranges to meet his contact there, Kol (Jose Nieto). Tracy admits she wants to see her brother, and if he will agree to take him back to Greece with them, she will pay him extra. Her brother is a French diplomat, and the Communists won't want him to leave. Again, Carson says no way - just see him and get out. Later, Kol agrees to take her to see him, due to her brother's condition.

It turns out the perishable cargo is children whose parents are paying to get them out of the country. Before Carson knows it, he's stuck with Tracy, her blind brother, his girlfriend, and a bunch of kids. They then make their way back to the border, and it's treacherous.

I see this film has been roundly criticized as an average adventure film - I actually don't see many of these, and I found this one absorbing and the ending quite sweet. Van Johnson was a great asset for MGM - he was charming and goodlooking for lighter fare, but could do serious drama as well. Here he's actually sexy at times.

Carol said later the part would have been played better by Sean Connery, who was as yet not a name. I'm sure Connery would have been fantastic. Johnson did well nonetheless.

The color and scenery are beautiful.

A woman (Martine Carol) hires an American smuggler (Van Johnson) to try and rescue her brother (Gustavo Rojo) from a political prison in Albania. They end up escorting a group of refugee kids, as well, as they struggle to make it across the border into Greece.

I liked Carol, an actress I wasnt familiar with, and Herbert Lom has fun as the lusty leader of a group bandits on horseback. Johnson tries, and while he isn't awful, I would have preferred someone else in his role. Connery plays Johnson's second mate aboard his small boat, and the future James Bond gets to drunkenly paw at Ms. Carol. Speaking of Bond, 5 years later Connery would shoot Anthony Dawson (here playing an Albanian military officer) in the first Bond film Dr. No, which incidentally was also directed by this film's Terence Young.

If for nothing else, this film is memorable for a scene in which the heroine is chased around the hero's boat by the mate, Mike, played by Sean Connery, as obvious prelude to rape, while said hero, a particularly grubby-looking Van Johnson (who had seen better days in Santa Fe Trail and The Strange Love of Martha Ivers) looks on indifferently. Somehow or other she gets out of this, but the idea that having escaped the clutches of Connery she would subsequently fall hard for Van Johnson give cinema one of it great "huh?" moments. Otherwise, the movie lacks much interest or originality despite the Albanian background which certainly could have been better exploited, as Albania was known during its Communist era as the last surviving medieval society in Europe, and attracted a goodly share of antiquarian tourists.

Along Romania, Albania suffered after WW2 the hardest communist dictatorship; Enver Hoxca (d.1985) ,who proclaimed his country the most atheist in the world,was responsible for extremely bloody reprisals .

It came to an end only in 1991. Today the country has opened up to Tourism ; you can go to the country from Greece by boat .....

But circa 1957 ,you were not able to walk just right in, like our heroes ; the borders were inaccessible, and a guy and his machine gun ( Sean Connery in the movie) single-handedly fighting both the Albanian soldiers and police , in your dreams perhaps !

Not only the captain (Van Johnson ) and his passenger (Martine Carol) can enter the country ,but most of the time they cross the country while effotlessly deceiving caricatures of soldiers (the galeries Lafayette bill - a department store in Paris- takes the biscuit !) and finding the brother straight-away , but they also find help on the way (Carol being the price to pay !)

Martine Carol was French biggest sex symbol in the fisrt half of the fifties ,till the coming of BB : she often appeared topless ("Lucrèce Borgia" "un caprice de Caroline Chérie" ) ,so it was only natural to show her breast after a swim :there's absolutely no chemistry between her and Johnson ,but Sean Connery -who would work again with Terence Young and was catapulted into megastardom- is more than fond of her .

Director Terence Young later dismissed ACTION OF THE TIGER as poorly directed and acted. Today, many seem to concur it's a bad film, only of interest because it brought Young and Sean Connery together, setting them on the path to make history with DR. NO five years later. However, I have to contest the idea that ACTION OF THE TIGER is a total turkey. Maybe it's because of its low reputation, but I was pleasantly surprised with it.

To be sure, the conventional wisdom that Van Johnson is miscast as a tough-talking sea captain is true. This role would have been ideal for Humphrey Bogart in his 1940s heyday, but not Johnson by any means. He struggles to seem like a hardass and his tough guy line delivery is stiff. Martine Carrol is a little better, but she's often wooden as well. She also happens to be the other lead.

However, I say the film survives this miscasting. It's a straightforward adventure story, the sort that would be homaged in the INDIANA JONES series. There's travel, exotic locations, dangers from an authoritarian regime, moments of humor, and plenty of suspense. Young keeps it all rolling and his direction, far from lousy, is assured throughout. It's not earth-shattering, but it is entertaining, ideal for a rainy Sunday.