Passage to Marseille

Wartime heroics never seemed exploited in quite so complex a fashion as "Passage to Marseille," directed by Michael Curtiz…

Bogart, a French journalist framed for murder because of his political views and sent to Devil's Island during World War II, escapes from his penal hell with four other convicts and winds up on a French freighter bound for home… Hoping to rejoin the fighting Free French resistance movement, the men, all fiercely loyal patriots, become involved in preventing a takeover of the ship by Fascist sympathizers…

This relatively simple plot line is then surrounded by a series of extraneous plots and subplots which were related in a series of single, double, and even triple flashbacks, making any semblance of coherency virtually impossible…

Bogart's characterization is equally vague and complicated as he maintained an opposing balance of virtue and vice… At one moment he is the picture of idealistic moral righteousness fighting against a callous system, and the next he debased his human nature as he brutally machine-guns some defenseless enemies… His moral platitudes do not balance his immoral behavior, making for ambiguity and confusion...

The most important saving grace of "Passage to Marseille" is the supporting cast headed by Bogart's "Casablanca" co-stars Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre, who all turned in strong character portrayals

Passage to Marseille (1944)

*** (out of 4)

Big-budget Warner war film about a group of Devil's Island escapees who join up with the French to battle Germans. I had held off on watching this film for many years expecting your typical WWII drama but that's certainly not what I got as the movie is quite different from other movies and in the end it comes off quite fresh and original. The movie is pretty much told via one flashback after another as we jump around in the story but this never get confusing as the screenplay perfectly builds off everything that happened earlier in the movie. We have Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre playing two of the escaped convicts and getting to know their backstory just added to everything that would follow when it came time to escape and then when it came time to fight. The film has an all-star cast that not only has Bogart and Lorre but we also get Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, George Tobias, Philip Dorn, Michele Morgan, John Loder and several other familiar character actors from the studio. The performances by the entire cast are very good but the film clearly belongs to Bogart who once again proves he was one of the all-time great tough guys. Only Bogart could pull off a role like this because he makes you understand why he hates his country yet, at the same time, you can tell that deep down he's going to have courage and be ready to fight when that time comes. Towards the end of the film when everyone is on a boat, which is about to be taken over by the Germans, a great battle follows and this entire sequence contains one great action piece after another and in the middle of it all is Bogart and you believe everything he does. The rest of the cast are all good and add a lot of entertainment to the film as one would expect from such veterans. Curtiz once again shows why he's one of the most underrated director's in the history of this era as he not only handles the action sequences but he also does a marvelous job with the quieter moments and he's perfectly capable of letting the drama build up over time. Many people have called this CASABLANCA-light as this film has pretty much all of the same talent behind it but it's really unfair to compare the two films as they are quite different on all levels. This film here certainly isn't a masterpiece but this is still a very solid action film that deserves a better reputation than it has.

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.

While much has been made of the flashback within a flashback utilized in the movie, one shouldn't overlook the great action sequences, particularly towards the end, that have you cheering on the French heroes in the film. Sure, Humphrey Bogart doesn't attempt a French accent, but just look at films where he didn't attempt a foreign accent and how disasters they were (what was that James Cagney Western where Bogie was supposed to speak with a Spanish accent? I still cringe at the thought of it.) But it doesn't affect his acting in the lead role. After all, Clark Gable didn't put on a Southern accent for "God With The Wind" and I didn't hurt his work in that masterpiece.

This is no masterpiece and it is difficult to follow sometimes, but just to see Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet and Claude Raines work is worth it. This

Again, many people have mentioned in the war crime Bogart commits in the film, but when I saw the supposed offending part, I had no problem with it. And I'm no conservative when it comes to such things normally, but the "crime" is against ruthless that these who had no such reservations about the rules of war.

"Casablanca" is an entirely different film and it is unfair to compare this one to that one just because it has the same director and many of the same cast members. This is a rousing piece of war propaganda that gets the audience involved and I liked it very much. There is even an emotional element to it and unlike "Casablanca," it does not feel studio bound with even some believable exterior shots. I give it seven out of ten for the action alone.

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.