Greenstreet/Lorre: Passage to Marseille (1944)

If last week’s Background to Danger was an attempt to recapture the magic of Casablanca, Passage to Marseille is an even more transparent effort to reunite the stars, the director, and the atmosphere of its iconic predecessor. Passage gets nearer to the mark, thanks especially to returning star Humphrey Bogart, though its labyrinthine structure plays a weird and distancing game with its audience.

Passage to Marseille begins with the journalist Manning (John Loder) interviewing Captain Freycinet (Claude Rains) about a Free French outpost in England. Freycinet tells Manning the incredible story of the naval voyage aboard the Ville de Nancy, where he was introduced to the garrison’s infamous gunner, Jean Matrac (Humphrey Bogart). There Matrac relays the strange way and his band (including Peter Lorre, Helmut Dantine, George Tobias, and Philip Dorn) made their way from the Devil’s Island into the service of the French air force. 

 

Passage to Marseille has become notable for its Inception-like plotting, which features a flashback within a flashback within a flashback. It’s evident that the film is an adaptation of a novel, where such narrative devices are commonplace, but in a film it’s a bit disorienting to be continually reminded that what we are seeing is actually just a story being told to one of the characters. Freycinet tells Manning about his first meeting with Matrac, at which time Matrac told him a story about being imprisoned on Devil’s Island, at which time the prisoners told each other the story of Matrac’s arrest. The film spirals ever backwards into history, with four separate timelines; none of it is too confusing, and as narrators go one could do a lot worse than Claude Rains, but it is peculiar to have to wait for nearly half the film to understand why we should care about most of the characters.

 

Fortunately, Bogart’s star power does much of the heavy lifting. The minute we see him, we too are eager to learn more about Matrac, this haunted and driven gunner. Bogart’s performance is clearly meant to emulate Rick Blaine of Casablanca, with his specific brand of morality driving him away from, then into, the Second World War. But there is something too of Fred C. Dobbs from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre in Jean Matrac, particularly in the Devil’s Island sequence where we see Matrac wrestle with his captors, false imprisonment and his own budding madness. As ever, Bogart is electrifying, though the film neuters itself by reminding us that we have already seen that Matrac will escape.

 

While sporting an eyepatch, Claude Rains does his usual Claude Rains thing, all elegance and precision. I was a little surprised to see the film not flash back to the loss of Freycinet’s eye, though Rains weaves it into the understated backstory of the character, treating it not as a handicap but as a welcome challenge to how he can continue to serve France. Among the rest of the cast, Lorre is a stand-out, though perhaps I’m biased. His Marius seems to be Matrac’s deputy, helping first to recruit Matrac in the escape attempt and then aiding him as he leads the other men to freedom. In the Ville de Nancy timeline, Marius is eager to speak for himself and his brothers, while simultaneously deferring to Matrac when he deigns to lift his voice. 

 

Relative to our purposes this month, Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre are once again kept apart for nearly all of the film, though the rampant chemistry between Bogart and Lorre is on full delightful display. Where he stumbled as a Nazi in Background to Danger, Greenstreet is better cast as the martinet Major Duval, who relies solely on his own intuition and who wields respect like a bullwhip. Greenstreet and Lorre only have the one significant scene together, in which Duval’s interrogation precedes Freycinet’s more sympathetic dialogue, and it’s a fine centerpiece for Greenstreet to tell us plenty about Duval. As usual, in this sequence Lorre tells us more about Marius in the moments when he’s not speaking, but one cannot help – especially this month – wanting more, more, more.

 

Director Michael Curtiz, himself of Casablanca, went to great pains to reassemble as much of the magic from that film in Passage to Marseille. So much of the cast returns for this one, right down to a cameo from singer Corinna Mura. (Even Michèle Morgan, in her thankless role as Matrac’s wife, has a Casablanca connection – she screen-tested for the role that inevitably went to Ingrid Bergman after Warner Bros lowballed RKO for a release from her contract.) Between Curtiz’s directorial eye and the musical ear of Max Steiner, who bombards the film with refrains from the French national anthem La Marseillaise, the film’s every impulse seems to invite comparisons with Casablanca – short of thinly remaking the film, as was the wont of the Golden Age of cinema, it seems there was little more that anyone could have done to make this film more like Casablanca. 

 

You don’t need me to tell you, however, that Casablanca needs no remake. It’s cute to watch them try, and a film starring Bogart in his prime is never a misuse of one’s time, but Passage to Marseille is neither quite what it aims to be nor precisely what its audience expects of it. As the old saying goes, though, here’s looking at you – even a vanilla Golden Age war film is still worth a look.

 

Passage to Marseille is not rated. Directed by Michael Curtiz. Written by Casey Robinson and Jack Moffitt. Based on the novel Sans Patrie by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. Starring Humphrey Bogart, Michèle Morgan, Claude Rains, Philip Dorn, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, George Tobias, and Helmut Dantine.

Monday at the Movies - April 22, 2013

Welcome to this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.”  We were so busy celebrating Clarence Darrow’s birthday last week that we missed William Holden’s big day (Wednesday, April 17).  To make up for it, dig this review of one of his best.  (And if you haven’t seen Stalag 17 yet, for shame!)

Sabrina (1954) – I recently wrote that Silver Linings Playbook revived my faith in the romantic comedy genre, and Billy Wilder’s Sabrina is a reminder of the heights to which that genre had previously been taken.  Audrey Hepburn stars as chauffeur’s daughter Sabrina Fairchild; back from Parisian cooking school with a new veneer of class, Sabrina sets her sights on her father’s wealthy employer David Larrabee (William Holden), but David’s brother Linus (Humphrey Bogart) needs to distract Sabrina long enough for David to marry a sugarcane heiress.  I won’t spoil the scheme, but I’m sure you know how it ends.  What can we say about Hepburn?  She’s gorgeous, a real vision, and she’s at her best when she brings out that coy smile to show how much she appreciates David’s attention.  As for Holden, his turn as pretty-boy David is a departure from his cynical characters from earlier Wilder flicks Sunset Boulevard and Stalag 17, but he handles it with cocksure aplomb and two unforgettable bits of physical comedy (without spoiling anything, those in the know will recall the champagne glasses and the conference table).  But it’s Bogart who’s the real surprise, a far cry from his noiristic detectives and silent tough guys; Bogart downright steals the film as Linus Larrabee, who affects puppy-love and industrial acumen with surprising success, such that you might have a hard time figuring out which is the real Linus and which the performance (and rightly so).  It seems like so many movies I review here are so laden with gravitas that it’s difficult to breathe, so Sabrina is a welcome note of levity.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!

Monday at the Movies - April 1, 2013

Welcome to this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.”  Even though it's April Fool's Day, no joke - this is a movie that could be reviewed in a single word:  “perfect.”  (Don’t worry, you’ll get the other 249, as well!)

The Maltese Falcon (1941) – As well as a directorial debut and a book-to-screen adaptation, The Maltese Falcon is the curious case of the remake that’s better than the original (is it the only one?).  Director John Huston takes the Dashiell Hammett book of the same name and films it virtually word-for-word, casting Humphrey Bogart in a star-making role as private eye Sam Spade.  It’s your classic MacGuffin film, where the object of pursuit is less important than the characters who pursue it, and here The Maltese Falcon shines with an amazingly engaging set of protagonists and antagonists who are all in it for themselves – even if it means double-crossing each other to get there.  Spade gets embroiled in a search for the fabled “Black Bird,” though he’s not sure who really wants it or why; in hot pursuit of the jeweled statue, Spade becomes embroiled in a sundry cast of characters including a charismatic pathological liar (Mary Astor), an effete but well-mannered criminal (Peter Lorre), and a garrulous gentleman (Sydney Greenstreet) whose vocabulary is matched only by his girth.  The Maltese Falcon is perfect on a number of levels – perfect cast, perfect direction (which practically reinvents noir before your eyes), perfect script that wastes not a single shot in relentless pursuit of the plot.  Huston has made something really remarkable film here, almost the noir version of Seinfeld, in which essentially nothing happens while four ostensible allies scramble over each other to come out on top.  On first watch, the pursuit is all; on second watch, you’ll be able to appreciate the performances now that you know who’s after what at which point.  On third watch?  You’ll be saying the dialogue along with them.  The Maltese Falcon is that perfect crystallization of earnestness and infectiousness, a movie instantly rewatchable time and again.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!

In a Lonely Place (1950)

I love Humphrey Bogart, and I "get" deconstructionism, but In a Lonely Place proves that the two just don't belong together.

Director Nicholas Ray helms this self-conscious, self-reflective look at Hollywood during a changing of the guard - the younger generation is starting to take over, much to the chagrin of aging screenwriter Dixon Steele (Bogart). Looking for a hit to revitalize his careeer, Dixon finds himself adapting a dud of a novel while romancing the girl next door (Gloria Grahame) and dodging a rep as the prime suspect in the murder of a hatcheck girl who went home with him. That's the film in a nutshell, but factor in the defining character trait for Dixon - a temper a short as the mayor of Munchkin City.

In many ways, In a Lonely Place could be described as a cross between The Big Sleep and Barton Fink. There's the same MacGuffin of a mystery with the character-driven focus on a Hollywood screenwriter. The difference is that both films in comparison were intentionally purposeless, with the ambiguity and off-kilter nature as a functioning element of the work, not as a distraction. In a Lonely Place begins as a murder mystery, becomes a romantic dramedy in the middle, and concludes as a dystopic dissection of the relationship between Bogart and Grahame, but it does so unevenly, with the audience just settling into the idea of the film as A before the film becomes B. As such, it's difficult to get a bead on the movie.

Bogart's performance is grade-A, as always. Though the plot meanders, there's something compelling about Bogart's performance; the switch from hard-boiled noir to simmering violent passion is a little more palatable in the deft hands of an actor of Bogart's impeccable credentials. Grahame isn't bad, but it's fairly obvious (and subsequently disappointing) she's subbing for Lauren Bacall, who I think is fabulous - especially when paired with Bogart. The rest of the supporting cast float in and out without any real significance; indeed, the roles could have been played by anyone.

What's most problematic about the film is its script. Chekhov has that wonderful line about guns in plays - if it's on the wall in the first act, it has to fire by the time the final act is concluded. In a Lonely Place never actually fires a lot of guns that it hangs on the wall. For example, the murdered girl cries "Help! Help!" several times in Dixon's apartment before she leaves for the evening; though Dixon expresses worry that she'll be heard by the neighbors - particularly because we know at least one is spying on him - no mention is made of this vital clue that might convict Dixon in the eyes of the police. Later, an unseen character is described as a UCLA student; when newspaper headlines carry a story about a young man from UCLA being beaten by one of the principal characters, one would expect these two story threads to intermingle, but no soap. Consequently, larger plot threads get dropped prematurely; the murder mystery all but disappears until a confession that comes in the final minutes of the film, problematizing the viewer's relationship to this A-to-B-to-C flick.

I'd hardly give In a Lonely Place an A. Bogart's performance is top-grade as always, particularly if you like to see him playing against type. Me, I prefer him as his type; there's a reason that "the Bogart character" has become archetypal, and deconstructing that archetype seems like a blatant exercise in intellectualism. The social critique of the changing tenor in Hollywood is intriguing and merits further study, but I'm not sure that Bogart needed to be anatomized the way that he is in this film. He does a good job, but ultimately it's not his strongest work.

The MPAA weren't handing out letter grades in 1950, but by today's standards In a Lonely Place would probably rank a PG for mild violence and moderate thematic content.