Nei Meandri della Casbah

Carla Lehmann wakes in a hospital in North Africa, where she tells a nursing sister of how she met British spy James Mason, stole a camera in Algiers for him and outwitted various nasty Nazis to save the landings at Oran in North Africa.

It's a good, breezy movie directed by George King, who just half a decade earlier had been directed melodramas starring Tod Browning. Now he was telling James Mason, one of Britain's biggest home-grown stars of the period what to do. Mason, however, is not the subject of the movie, and is present for about half of it. Instead, Canadian-born Miss Lehmann carries the show as a quick-witted sculptress from Kansas. She's pretty good, even though the net effect of this movie is a hands-across-the-seas programmer from, say, Universal. The plot borrows liberally from other movies. There's an extensive Casbah segment that suggests PEPE LE MOKO, and a local girl hopelessly in love with Mason, played charmingly by Pamela Stirling; Walter Rilla plays the baddie, even though there isn't much menace in performance; and the Americans are represented, not only by Miss Lehmann, but Bart Norman playing General Mark Clark!

Mason didn't think much of the movie. He later noted that after the war, it was a hit in Bulgaria. Perhaps it's because he wore a mustache for the first half of it.

British spy Alan Thurston (Mason) is trying to get hold of a camera to bring to the British Consulate in Algiers. It has pictures of the location of a top-secret meeting place of the Allied commanders regarding the invasion of North Africa. Tailing him is RNO (repugnant Nazi official) Dr. Muller, who knows of the camera. Thurston breaks into the Algerian residence of American civilian Susan Foster (Carla Lehmann), with Muller in hot pursuit. Thurston persuades her to help him in his quest for the camera, since he is too notorious and would be arrested on sight in Algiers. There then follows a tense and taut cat-and-mouse game with Nazi officials and our two co-heroes.

The picture is extremely well-done and the suspense doesn't let up for the entire 82 minutes (by my watch). There is a romantic interlude in The Casbah, where Thurston has sought refuge and has taken Ms. Foster, reminiscent of 'Pepe Le Moko", in which similar circumstances occur. Ms. Foster, it turns out, is from Kansas, fulfilling the prophesy of my headline. Walter Rilla plays Dr. Muller in despicable fashion, a Nazi civilian official feared by everyone in the picture except Thurston.

Despite the grim circumstances the mood of the picture ranges from deadly serious to lighthearted, especially during exchanges between Mason and Lehmann (the deadly serious passages belong to Rilla). I agree with a reviewer above that Mason was a dashing adventure hero - too bad he became typecast as humorless and overbearing. I don't understand why this movie is so lightly regarded and why it hasn't been shown on TV or in revival houses. Note to IMDb directors: Your rating is too low. It is better than a similar movie, "Five Graves To Cairo", made the previous year. You should at least use the median figure instead of the weighted one.

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.

This is all adventure while the war is only a decoration. Lovely Carla Lehmann, reminding very much of Carole Lombard, is a very American Kansas girl who accidentally gets mixed up with a brazen English adventurer (James Mason) who has taken some forbidden pictures of some very secret German maps, which he is being chased for as he tries to smuggle them out of Algeria. They team up and eventually end up in the exotic Casbah, where anyone can hide or disappear forever. There is a lot of good humour here, the dialog is flippant and exhilarating, the wit is constantly on a high level and good mood, and Carla is doing surprisingly well. The Germans are not all complete dumbbells here, doktor Muller is quite awesome in his perfect politeness, and the exploration of intriguing environments in Algiers is quite entertaining, and eventually the invasion of North Africa starts rolling on. The spirit of the film is ironic with some detachment, and there are some really hilarious scenes with French and German officers in their very different approach to women. It is not a great film, but it is entertaining enough.

"Candlelight in Algeria" is, by my standards, a superior noir adventure which concerns a secret conference being held, despite danger, in Algeria during WWII. The protagonist is an American girl from Kansas--a reference to Dorothy's line in the"Wizard of Oz" (1939) "I guess we're not in Kansas any more." She is staying with relatives and falls in with a spy, ably played by the powerful James Mason. The body of this brilliantly suspenseful film then falls into important episodes, involving a dangerous theft, misunderstandings, a major confrontation with the Nazi's chief investigator, and a thrilling flight leading to the final action--one in which Mason risks his life to divert the Nazis and their coerced French partners from disrupting the conference. The film is told in an envelope flashback by the heroine, Lehman, in a hospital, wondering whether Mason is alive or dead. George King directed most skillfully, from a script by Dorothy Hope, John Clements, Katharine Strueby and Brock Williams. The film was produced by John Stafford with original music by Roy Douglas and James Turner and award- level cinematography by Otto Heller. The fine art direction was done by Norman G. Arnold. In the above-average cast, Carla Lehman was charismatic and intelligent as the American girl, and James Mason more than excellent as the solider-spy who enlists her before falling in love with her. Walter Rilla plays a most intelligent spy master, Dr, Muller; Raymond Lovell and Enid Stamp-Taylor are used for comedy. Offbeat Pamela Stirling as Yvette and the rest of the cast are all more than adequate. A classic chase and hiding out in the Casbah is given touches of humor, without ever losing its interesting edge as it pits suave Brit Mason against brave but naive neo-puritan USer, Lehman. Look for the interrogation scenes, the Algiers' hideout scenes and the climactic, intelligent chase sequence, among others. This is a film worth watching many times, and for many values, I suggest. It was often imitated afterward but seldom equaled.