Casbah

Satisfying, exotic American version of the French film "Pepe Le Moko" (which, I've heard, was distributed here in the U.S. under its French title, which means Pepe the Pimp, unbeknowest to the censors). Boyer leads the right star performance and Lamarr gets her ingenue role as the girl he loves but can't see outside of the Casbah. When the police try to arrest Pepe in the Casbah, he quickly disappears and they receive no cooperation from the locals. To lure him out of that district's confines, the cops set up a trap using the unknowing Lamarr as bait. their sad, brief romance ends, presumably, with his incarceration. Similar in plot, but not in tone, to contemporary "gangster" flicks.

It was made just one year after Duvivier's classic ,which even Godard (Godard!)mentioned in his "Pierrot LE Fou".Although I hate God'Art about as much as I love Duvivier,I must admit that a film that can transcend the New Wavelet's contempt possesses something magic a la "Casablanca" .

I was skeptical about the lead:aristocratic Charles Boyer replacing plebeian Gabin?I was wrong :Boyer,who began his career in France after all ,was up to scratch.And I 'd go as far as to write that Hedy Lamarr is much more attractive than Mireille Balin in the original.

All that remains is faithful like a dog: except for the scene when an old singer (Frehel) bursting into tears when she hears one of her old recordings,all the important sequences were kept.Cromwell's directing is efficient ,although it never recaptures the intensity (and the director's pessimism) of its model ,is a good film one can recommend to people who cannot get "Pepe Le Moko" .

Objections: the scene of Pierrot 's letter and the punishment of the informer is much too long and lacks suspense.Biggest gaffe is this ditty ("C'est La Vie" ) which Boyer sings and which seems out of a musical :in what is primarily a film noir,it's thoroughly incongruous.

Many of the great lines of the French classic can be heard ,notably the famous "I'm an informer,I'm not a hypocrite",and the Boyer/Lamarr pairing displays a special chemistry .The black and white makes a good use of shadows and lights.

If all the remakes were made with care like this one.....

This is a great movie well worth watching. The interaction between the leads, Charles Boyer and Hedy Lamarr, is nothing short of beautiful.

Other people have described the plot, the setting, and the great photography, so I will skip that. Some have written here that Algiers compares well to "Casablanca." I can't agree with that. This movie doesn't have the heroism, the larger than life situation, the love triangle. For that reason, I can't rate it more than 8 (while I rate Casablanca a 10+).

As has also been noted here, Algiers is a remake of the French movie "Pepe Le Moko". I have not seen that movie. I'm sure I will someday. Some people have written that the French movie is better, and that the lead actor there, Gabin, is more believable as a gangster. That may well be true; I will not argue it. It doesn't matter. Boyer is excellent here. His personna is completely believable to me, and, frankly, I don't much care how closely he matches authentic French gangsters. No wonder so may female movie fans fell in love with him!

The movie is made even more appealing by the secondary characters. Gene Lockart's informer is well acted. Joseph Calleia does a great job as the "native" detective who has easy access to the Casbah. Sigrid Gurie is great as the jealous courtesan. Alan Hale Sr. is great as the witty erudite criminal. The rough fellow who always says "OK" was fun. I also enjoyed the slim bodyguard dressed in white who never said anything; not sure which actor this is.

If there is a flaw, it is maybe an overall dearth of intensity. Maybe this is a question of evolving movie-making style, a difference of eras. I think we expect criminals these days to show a lot of anger, to hear a lot of nasty snarling dialogue. You aren't going to hear that in this movie.

And frankly I don't care because this is not a crime drama, it's a tragic love story. Which brings us to the main reason to see this movie. Hedy Lamarr.

What can I say? "Wow" is hardly sufficient. "Holy @#!&%" doesn't help much. Of all the beautiful actresses there have been, of all the kinds of beauty -- cute, girl-next-door, classic, sultry, innocent, exotic, hot, mysterious, haughty, bombshell, va-va-voom, ethereal -- Hedy Lamarr had the best. No she didn't have the sexiest body; she was actually a little thin. She wasn't the oh-so-appealing cute type like Meg Ryan, or the sexy bombshell like Marilyn Monroe, or the exotic Greta Garbo. This is pure human female beauty. And it's not just some portrait or statue. She speaks, she smiles, she moves. There are at least three scenes of conversations with Charles Boyer that I just can't watch often enough. By direction or not, she slightly underacts. It's been said that she really wasn't that good at acting. Could be; again, who cares? She communicates plenty to me.

So applaud it for the plot, the photography, the great secondary characters, the wonderful Charles Boyer. And drink a toast to Hedy Lamarr.

While John Cromwell's Hollywood remake of Julien Duvivier's 'Pepe le Moko' from the year before is evidently the lesser film, still it has its share of artistic success. Cameraman James Wong Howe establishes a shifty, exotically attractive and morally uncertain milieu out of the casbah, the sordid urban jungle that is a city unto itself in the center of Algiers.

This is where the outcasts live, from all over the world, criminals, prostitutes, go-getters. French jewel thief Pepe lives here too, in exile but surrounded by good, loyal friends of every ethnic persuasion. Here he makes quick escapes over the rooftops and everybody protects him. The police has futile dreams of luring him out of the casbah where they can get to him, and maybe a visiting Parisian siren can be of help? Cromwell's version is very faithful to the original French film, and in every instance that I could think of is it inferior. But Howe's refined cinematography, the lighting and, most of all, Charles Boyer all make this a worthwhile watching experience. He is suave and magnetic, his accent intoxicating, and the scenes between him and the sultry Hedy Lamarr are cinema history, their meeting in the sleazy club where long, lingering closeups show the way he impresses himself on her, and this is one extremely sexy, even smoky encounter.

So, watch it, and then do yourself the favor of looking up Julien Duvivier's film, a vastly better one.

Boyer doesn't actually say that, of course -- in fact, he never LEAVES the Casbah, so how could he -- but it's the general idea. I'm told this independently-produced Hollywood classic is almost a shot-for-shot remake of Duvivier's "Pepe Le Moko," from the previous year; I've never seen that one, but it's hard to believe Duvivier could have matched John Cromwell's fabulous production design, combining skillful backlot compositions with second-unit location projections, or the moody James Wong Howe photography, with the sweeping tracking shots capturing life in every corner.

The story may be no more than standard romantic hokum, but whether the filmmakers intended it or not, the movie has a wonderful existential melancholy, with Boyer's heavy eyelids viewing the world impassively, accepting his fate unquestioningly. Add to that a fine rogue's gallery of character actors (especially nice work from Gene Lockhart and Alan Hale), and you have brilliant Hollywood escapism. The judicious, sparing use of music (unusual in those Max Steiner days of underline-everything-with-a-melody) adds to the atmosphere. And it matters not a whit that Hedy Lamarr is not much of an actress here, or that every plot turn is utterly predictable.