Congo Crossing

This film will make you sweat. I have not seen this movie since 1957, and its memory persists. The scenes of swarming tse-tse flies and jungle conditions make it well worth looking for. Interesting cast, although movie guides often don't give it high ratings, I think it should be reconsidered ... esp. in comparison to "Outbreak", "12 monkeys"; and in comparison to some more modern movies on Africa.

As an antidote to the sweetness of "The African Queen," try this raunchy little rough-and-ready tale in which a passel of sleazy bums from Europe and America sort out their differences in and around the Congo, while decent African citizens just try to get on with things. Peter Lorre is radiant as the chief bum, a combination Capt. Renault/Ugarte character in a natty gold braided uniform who rules by dint of outclassing everybody.

Reading that Universal got Virginia Mayo's services for Congo Crossing in exchange for Rock Hudson going to Warner Brothers I was stunned and thinking in baseball terms. The biggest one sided deal I had ever heard of since the Mets parted with Nolan Ryan to the Angels for Jim Fregosi. The cast didn't even get the benefit of a nice African location shoot.

Shot in the Botanical Gardens of Los Angeles this routine action adventure film has Virginia Mayo as a socialite on the run and George Nader an engineer on a surveying mission.

They're both at a real sleazy town in the French Congo where Peter Lorre runs a rather loose enforcement policy. There's also Michael Pate who is a hit man contracted to get Mayo.

Nader's mission to survey the place as the Congo River boundaries have changed and find out whether Lorre's jurisdiction of Congotanga is in the French or Belgian Congo. The ambiguity of the situation causes concern for all and it's made Congotanga the wide open place it is. Everyone wants to know, but many don't want the knowledge to go public.

In this is a very nice portrayal from Rex Ingram of a black doctor running a hospital. Which colonial power he lives under is of little concern to him. He knows the white man will be gone soon enough, but while he's there he wants what he needs to run his hospital.

Congo Crossing is a below average action adventure film. Must George Nader ever have envied Rock Hudson.

Since I refuse to dislike a movie featuring Virginia Mayo and Peter Lorre, I admit to be biased in judging "Congo crossing". Virginia Mayo at her sexiest takes the movie on her beautiful shoulders. She is perfect in the role of the gorgeous adventuress wrapped into a number of stunning dresses (not particularly suited to Africa, to be honest). Maybe a trite character, but so dear to us old-flicks-buffs. Peter Lorre, unwashed, sweat and shabby as ever, hangs about with his unclean uniform, covered by medals in the style of a South-American dictator. Needless to say, he makes a treat of his whole screen-time. The sleazy and physically scary Michael Pate is a great villain. George Nader is a nice handsome guy, unfortunately lacking of charisma. But that's not much important: Virginia has enough charisma for both.

The story has some resemblance with "Casablanca". Only, here the refugees are replaced by crooks hidden in an imaginary little African state with no extradition laws. I don't know whether the movie was actually filmed in Africa. In any case, the locations are beautiful, the photography is accurate and the atmosphere is evocative. There are several old-style but well-made action scenes.

In "Congo Crossing" there are also some flaws, typical of this kind of movies. A common one for that epoch: the villain is prisoner of the hero, and the hero never sleeps, until exhaustion, for fear to be attacked. Why doesn't he simply tie the bad guy overnight?

Besides the intrinsic credit of Virginia's and Lorre's presence, "Congo crossing" is a pleasant, relaxing movie, especially suited to lovers of classic cinema.

Same kind of intrigue as the Michael Curtiz's film, a mix up of exotic adventre and espionage yarn, intrigue, with good action scenes. It is full of charm of the fifties, and I thought about a Paramount film instead of Universal, because the Mountainl logo film company was more specialized in exotoc features, starring for instance John Payne and Rhonda Fleming or Arlene Dahl, directed by the likes of Lewis Foster or Edward Ludwig, than Universal, the science fiction and western oriented studio. Not my favourite from Jo Pevney who was a complete director: westerns, adventure - many with Jeff Chandler - crime; never any horror nor science fiction though. This one deserves to be seen at least once, for your knowledge.