Memorable, crazy movie

hyped garbage

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Producer/director: GEORGE KING. Screenplay: Katherine Strueby, Brock Williams. Additional dialogue: John Clements. Story: Dorothy Hope. Photography: Otto Heller. Camera operator: Gus Drisse. Exterior photography: Patrick Gay. Supervising film editor: Terence Fisher. Film editor: Winifred Cooper. Art director: Norman Arnold. Music composed by Roy Douglas and James Turner, directed by Jack Beaver. Songs by Jack Denby, Hans May, Alan Stranks, Muriel Watson, G. Arbib. Songs sung by Christiane De Murin. Sound recording: Ernest A. Royles, Cecil W. Thornton. Associate producer: John Stafford. Executive producer: S. W. Smith. (Available on an 8/10 Odeon DVD).A George King Production for British Aviation Pictures, released in the U.K. by British Lion: 20 March 1944. In the U.S.A. by 20th Century- Fox. Registered: December 1943. "U" certificate. New York opening at the Victoria: 29 July 1944. Australian release through G.B.D./20th Century-Fox: 8 February 1945. 7,904 feet. 87½ minutes.SYNOPSIS: A British spy outwits Nazi agents in Algiers.COMMENT: Aside from three sequences (the rescue from the hotel with a neatly-timed bit of impersonation by James Mason as the villains confer in the middle of an enormous vestibule while vacuum cleaners whirr in the foreground; the beautifully-lit confrontation and escape from the Casbah; the climactic car chase), this is a routine slice of war- time nonsense, routinely and even poorly acted (especially by the heroine who is not very attractively photographed either) and very routinely and uninspiredly directed. Lots of close- ups are used, because the film is largely stage-bound with lots of banal additional dialogue and familiar clichés of plot and characterization. Rilla does what he can with the part of the villain, but much of his effort is dissipated by King's heavy-handed direction.

I noticed a discrepancy with the running time of the version of this film I downloaded for free at archive.org--it runs 81 minutes, not 86. IMDb says there's a severely truncated version at 65 minutes...but this one I saw was missing only five minutes or the running time listed on IMDb is incorrect.When the film begins, Susan (Carla Lehmann) awakens in a hospital bed as there are celebrations for the combined Allied landing in North Africa. The film then jumps back to before this and explains what exactly had happened to Susan.A desperate escaped POW takes shelter in Susan's home in Algeria. At this point, the Vichy French and Americans were not at war with each other and so despite the Vichy being essentially a vassal state to the Nazis, American nationals are allowed in this part of France even though the US and Germany are at war. So, if Susan wanted to, she simply could have turned in Alan (James Mason) and been safe. But instead he soon convinces her to help him obtain a camera filled with important film...film which COULD hamper the Americans and Free French from invading North Africa. And, as a result of her choice, Susan is in almost constant peril.This is a pretty exciting war film--one obviously meant to drum up sentiment in favor of the Allied cause. While technically this is a propaganda film, it's a good one and doesn't come off as jingoistic or which depicts the Germans as monsters like many other films. Because of this, it holds up pretty well, though most viewers today might not understand the context for the film--such as what was Vichy France and how were the Free French very different. Still, an enjoyable little film. Oh, and although it doesn't matter, the American lady, Susan, was played by a Canadian. And, there also is a bit of a plot hole as the film really did NOT explain why Susan was in the hospital--particularly as just before this she seemed healthy and just fine on the ship. Odd...as was the ending, though that was odd in an enjoyable sense.

A watchable but bland movie, without any poetry, wit or charm, but with an annoying leading man (the chap tracked by the German secret service) and an also bland, often uninspiring leading woman (though I enjoyed the way she was wearing her dresses); the title, the genre itself, the cast seem promising, but the blandness of the craft is enhanced by the carelessness and silliness of the script, the plot enhances the strong scent of silliness and schmaltz and the blandness of the cartoon characters (Thurston's insolence and authoritarianism make him intensely annoying). Some sense of menace and threat, with characters meant to look intriguing, results despite this mediocre movie being blandly made by G. King; the movie has a strong scent of silliness, but some may enjoy the car-chase at Cap Hazard, or the passing from the hotels and glamorous prostitution to the slum of Kasbah, and it could all have been exciting, with the interrogatory at GAC and the sacrifice of the French girl. The plot happens in Biskra and then Alger, during the armistice masquerade, when the Germans look for a map, the map of a house at Cap Hazard, where the Allied officers meet to prepare the attack; Rilla plays Müller, the mastermind of the German espionage in Alger. When the American girl is brought to Müller's office, at the German Armistice Commission, and she leans across the desk to help him solve the puzzle game, she couldn't have reached the board from where she stood; Thurston was about to be executed by people who don't even care to arrest him. The schmaltz previously mentioned is due to G. King, one of the lousiest English directors.

You can get this film from Movies Unlimited. However, it is not 85 minutes long as advertised in IMDb and other places. It's about 63 minutes long, but the story seems complete enough. The interplay between the American heroine and her English secret agent boy friend is snappy and sassy. If you have ever wondered why James Mason was once considered the "Cambridge edition of Clark Gable", then look no further than this film. I particularly like the scenes where he is running around with a fez on his head for no apparently good reason. This was one of three films Mason did where he played the "good" guy (before the Brits figured out he'd be much more of a box office hit playing slightly sadistic anti-heroes). The other two are "Hotel Reserve" and "Secret Mission".