A Passport to Hell

I did not know this movie from director Frank Lloyd, the film maker of MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY. The kind of film in which I could have expected Marlene Dietrich in this role. It is interesting to speak of espionage in this part of the world, Africa, and before WW1. But the film was made in the early forties, so it could have hardly spoken of WW2.... The Germans - and not Nazis yet - are of course the villains, that's not a surprise. Gary Cooper could also have been well in the cast. But I think it could have more action scenes, because I found it a bit too talkative. Many movies from this era were more action providers.

This is an odd little film starring the Italian-born actress, Elissa Landi. She plays Myra, a woman with a checkered past (they NEVER really said what that was, exactly...but like all Pre-Code films you can assume it means she was promiscuous). The story begins with her being tossed out of a British colony in Africa just before WWI. The ship then dumps her at a German-controlled port...and the Germans don't want her either...particularly the Baron in charge (Warner Oland). He assumes she's a bad influence and denies her entry. But, his headstrong and incredibly immature son marries Myra to allow her to stay...but their relationship is doomed for many reasons....and a dashing Lieutenant (Paul Lukas) is part of it.

In many ways, this film feels like a Greta Garbo film--complete with the over-emoting from the leading lady and a syrupy feel. I know this is heresy to many old film buffs, but I don't care for this sort of acting...it's heavy on emotion and light on believability. Still, despite the acting and a few lulls, this isn't a bad film....and seems to have 'Time Passer' written all over it.

There is something both of Graham Greene and Joseph Conrad in this interesting drama of relationships in colonial Africa at the outbreak of World War I. Elissa Landi, who played Mercedes in "The Count of Monte Christo" against Robert Donat in the same year, makes an exquisite performance that could be her best. When her cavalier, a British officer of Dahomey, commits suicide, she knows nothing of the matter since she was in another room, but she anyway gets deported on suspicion of having driven him too suicide. She is deported to the German colony of Kamerun, where a young German officer (Alexander Kirkland) gets infatuated with her and marries her to save her from the authorities, the leading one being his father (Warner Oland), who also makes a most interesting performance in his change of character from an adamant official to a tragic father. Another German officer (Paul Lukas, as a young man in another outstanding performance) also gets infatuated with her, so there are complications, eventually leading to all kinds of tragedies and her final deportation, but she lands on her feet while no one else does.

Elissa Landi was an Italian from Venice and one of the great actresses of the 30s, unfortunately her career was interrupted by cancer, as she died at only 43. After this film Frank Lloyd Wright made the unsurpassed masterpiece of the First World War "Cavalcade" with Diana Wynyard.

Elissa Landi has just been kicked out of all the British African colonies for all the reasons that women were kicked out of tropical ports in Pre-Code movies. She winds up in German Africa and fascinates Alexander Kirkland, a German officer whose father, Warner Oland, is the captain of the port. The First World War is declared and she's about to be stuck in a penal camp, so Kirkland marries her -- and then Oland tells him why she's there. He doesn't care. The two of them are off in the bush, then, while he's away on maneuvers, along comes Kirkland's buddy, Paul Lukas, and she fascinates him.... and he her.

It was one of the movies that the Majors were producing at the time, of shady ladies caught up in the events of the First World War. MGM had Garbo in MATA HARI and RKO put Helen Twelvetrees in A WOMAN OF EXPERIENCE. Miss Landi gives a wonderful performance here, but somehow she never comes across as someone who sets out to captivate the helpless men. If anything, the script and her performance draws her as someone who does so almost unwillingly, forced into a demi-mondaine's life as a curse, an unwilling Erda.

Frank Lloyd's direction may seem casually uncaring to the modern viewer, with all the characters easily accepting the racist and sexist standards of the times. I think it was a deliberate choice; none of the characters seem aware of what they are doing except for Miss Landi, who sets out to marry Kirkland and frustrate his father in revenge.... and then gets caught in her own web.