Sick Product of a Sick System

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

What a sinister delight, Josef Von Sternberg guided Marlene to become Dietrich. He knew something about her that nobody knew, maybe not even her. but whatever it was it's still magic. When Gary Cooper sees her for the first time, she's dressed as a man and look at what happens in Cooper's eyes. Von Sternberg knew what he was doing. Deliciously twisted. She's in charge and yet she allows herself to surrender. Her masculinity blends to perfection with Cooper's femininity - It is clear now in 2018, I wonder how the 1930 audiences saw it. If you love movies, Morocco is a gift.

A cabaret singer (Marlene Dietrich) and a Legionnaire (Gary Cooper) fall in love, but their relationship is complicated by the results of his womanizing and due to the appearance of a rich man who wants her for himself.According to Robert Osborne of Turner Classic Movies, Cooper and von Sternberg did not get along. Von Sternberg filmed so as to make Cooper look up at Dietrich, emphasizing her at his expense. Cooper complained to his studio bosses and got it stopped. When Dietrich came to the US, von Sternberg welcomed her with gifts including a green Rolls-Royce Phantom II which featured in some scenes of "Morocco".As I understand it, Dietrich was already a star in Germany, and this was her big transition to Hollywood. Clearly someone noticed because they gave her an Oscar nomination and her scene in the coattails is now considered iconic (and even a bit racy). World, meet Marlene Dietrich!

MOROCCO is exactly the sort of film you'd expect to find MARLENE DIETRICH in at this early point in her career as the seductress working as a cabaret singer where she attracts the attention of a young legionnaire GARY COOPER and a wealthy older man, ADOLPHE MENJOU. There's never any doubt that the screen chemistry between Dietrich and Cooper in the first cabaret scene will lead to their ultimate romantic attachment, but some viewers will be surprised at the film's memorable ending.It's easy to see that sound was new when this was made. Some of the dialog sounds stilted and words are spoken more slowly than necessary even by pros like Menjou to make sure the microphone catches every syllable. But the story moves at a nice pace, the exotic settings are photographed in subtle shadings of B&W, and Dietrich gets to warble a few songs in that inimitable style, although her voice sounded much better later on in her career when technical improvements in sound helped improve the quality of her husky vocalizing.It's a pleasure to see the young GARY COOPER in an early understated performance opposite the sizzling MARLENE DIETRICH--both contribute to the eye candy appeal of a rather sultry epic from Von Sternberg.

I suppose people's opinion of this movie is coloured by aspects other than the plot because it is strictly formulaic - and extremely dull. It must be the glamour of the stars - Cooper and Dietrich in their perfect prime - that has earned it a relatively high rating on this site. That and Lee Garme's superb cinematography. Oh yeah, and the set design which really has you believing the cast are sweating beneath a Moroccan sun instead of a bank of klieg lights on a Paramount sound stage.The story was old back in the 30s, and this could easily have been a silent movie. The story is told largely through its imagery of sex and money and death, and the plot is relegated to a minor framework onto which von Sternberg can project his imagery. As usual, his cinematic eye dwells lovingly on Dietrich's flawless face. She and Cooper make a good looking couple, even though they rarely create sparks in their scenes together.Cooper is a cavalier legionnaire with an eye for the ladies, Dietrich a 'suicide passenger,' weary of men but instantly attracted to Cooper - which, given his character, probably explains why she is so weary of men. They both know the other isn't good for them, but their heads are over-ruled by their hearts. That ending might put off some modern-day viewers: a barefoot Dietrich, rejecting kindly millionaire Adolph Menjou's wealth to follow Cooper's platoon into the Sahara, subjugating her own life to his. It's a crude form of symbolism that would be considered risible today but, because of the film's age, it has acquired the spurious status of a classic.