Passage to Marseille

I think some people have been unduly unfair on this film.

There is quite a complex sequence of flashbacks. But as a matter of fact, I didn't find them at all difficult to follow. My brain only hurts when I try to work it out afterwards. Maybe it's another of those things which work better in a cinema than on TV.

There is a scene where Bogart's character commits a war crime. I think we have to remember that Bogart did not always play saintly characters. He was not exactly saintly in the "Maltese Falcon" or "Casablanca". He was even less saintly in "The Caine Mutiny". I am sure that the audience in 1944 would have been shocked by the war crime just as we are

now; even Nazi propaganda sometimes emphasised the importance of being gentlemanly to prisoners. The easy and boring option would have been for

Bogart to play the all-American (or all-French) hero throughout; I find it

more interesting that in this case he isn't. I think the circumstances to some extent explain what Bogart's character does. The fact is war crimes happen in war. They happened then, and they happen now, and the perpetrators are not as through-and-through evil (or different from us) as we would like to think.

I agree with those who say this film is not as good as "Casablanca" or the "Maltese Falcon". The plot is a lot more lumpy and uneven than those films. But I've seen those two films several times already, and I can't watch them every night. "Passage to Marseille" is worth at least one viewing. In fact I would like to see it again, if I get a chance.

It must be a problem for first-time viewers to watch this flashback within a flashback within a flashback film. There is also the urge to compare this with "Casablanca". It cannot hold a candle to that masterpiece. On its own, it has some good qualities. The production is first-rate. The cast do excellent work considering the limits of the cliche-ridden script. The Devil's Island sequence is particularly well executed. So we have a film that may disappoint considering the talent but is hard to dismiss.

I think this film gets a bad rap as most people see it as a Casablanca wanna-be based on the fact that the same players appear in both (even the singer Corinne Mura shows up here although she was uncredited in Casablanca). Granted, this is a propaganda film but so were hundreds of others made at this time. France gets particular attention as the sole cause of the Munich sell-out and Marshall Petain, old and misguided, gets all the blame......this is not exactly how it was but we have to remember that Vichy was collaborating with the Nazis. (Remember how Claude Rains threw away the bottle of Vichy water in Casablanca?) So we have to view this film in the context of the times.

Bogey plays his character just like Bogey.....no attempt at a French accent which probably would have been disastrous anyway and the cast is a melting pot of nationalities. But how can you go wrong with Bogey, Greenstreet, Rains and Lorre? They could make an educational film about the building and maintenance of an internal combustion engine interesting!

The flashbacks are not hard to follow, and although a rather awkward story telling method in this particular film, don't really take that much away from the screenplay.

Bogey's actions surrounding the survivors of the downed German plane were a bit surprising but hey, it was war. The entire fight on the ship against the Germans was the best part of the film.

Michele Morgan had absolutely nothing to do in this film which is too bad as she was a wonderful actress with a haunting beauty but this is basically a man's movie.

All in all, this isn't a bad film but it has suffered because of its comparison to Casablanca. Be warned that it is pure propaganda but I found it enjoyable and a window on a different time.

Quite a good film. I didn't have any trouble following the flashback-in-a-flashback scheme. Bogart was Bogart. What can you say? Greenstreet and Lorre were good. Claude Rains was excellent. Apparently, some people are upset at this film because it isn't "Casablanca". I don't really think it tried to be. It was probably just that the actors and director liked working together, and if that sold more tickets, well, no one would complain. Clint Eastwood and Woody Allen frequently cast their films with the same actors, presumably friends (and lovers), and no one thinks twice about it.

Many serious film buffs have made the comparison between this movie and Casablanca. The director and cast are almost identical. They also take issue with the nested flashbacks, claiming that it confuses the story. I disagree. Think for a moment; if Casablanca had never been made, this would certainly be a riveting movie in it's own right. It deserves to stand alone and be recognized - for the propaganda it was.

I won't go into the story itself, but I couldn't help making an observation about the cast. This is supposed to be a story about French convicts who recognize the errors of their ways and come to France's aid when she needs them most. Humphrey Bogart and George Tobias were from New York (the accents prove it), Philip Dorn from the Netherlands, Helmut Dantine from Austria, Peter Lorre from Hungary, Victor Francen from Belgium, Vladimir Sokoloff from Russia, and Claude Rains, John Loder, Sidney Greenstreet from England. Only Michelle Morgan was French and she seemed more like an afterthought.

An honorable mention for my favorite director: Michael Curtiz. Many people have called him a studio hack and criticized him for his dictatorial rather than directorial attitude toward cast and crew alike, but anybody who could construct such diverse masterpieces as "Casablanca" and "The Adventures of Robin Hood", deserves much more credit than he ever got. I urge you to review his screen credits. He was prolific and uncompromising in the quality of his work.