Customer Reviews

Passage to Marseille [VHS]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'll admit, I wasn't expecting much from this film when I saw it. I checked it out because it reunites the core crew of Casablanca; Michael Curtiz back as director, Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains, Peter Lorre and Syndey Greenstreet all come back to a World War II movie that once again doesn't take place on any battlefields or any locations of infamy. The thing is, this movie is so great that you'll wonder for a moment if it can really be this good, if they could possibly re-create the magic of Casablanca, but do it in such a completely different, but altogether touching way.

They did. This movie is 5 movies all packed into one. The story of the french patriots and how they got put on Devil's Island, how they escaped to go fight for their country, their run-in and interaction with a french ship filled with military out to expose them and send them back, and their fight against the Germans. It's a mirror aimed at a mirror, because one story inevitably bleeds into another into another into another and the sheer courage of such complex screenwriting and confident directing is one of the many reasons to seek this out.

This movie also has heart. The story of Bogart's love affair with both France and his wife and son is just as powerful as the French struggle to fight the Germans and regain their homeland. From the first frame to the last, it's a film riddled with emotions and real characters with actual hearts and joy and sorrow and triumph. Plus, there is a ton of action, from machine-guns against airplanes to escaping from treacherous jungles to air-raids against the enemy.

Enough cannot be said about this extremely underrated classic. Bogart fans and Casablanca fans alike will be kicking themselves that they've gone so long without experiencing this almost essential companion piece to the film widely-regarded (and rightly so) as a classic of filmmaking and storytelling.

Ever since Casablanca, this movie made in its wake was considered a disappointment, but I enjoyed it just as much, if not better! I'm not a particular Bogart fan, but I really liked him in this movie...his role befits him: hardened, determined, yet with deep passion in spite of his steely exterior. During the film, his life takes several turns: as a newspaper printer, a hard labor prisoner, a refuge on a French military ship, and a hero for France. He loves his wife, and he loves his country, and in spite of the injustice he suffered in France, he vows to fight against the Nazis to save her.

The first few minutes of the film in which there is a lot of talk is somewhat dull, but then we are launched into the telling of the adventures and dangers of sentenced men escaping from French Guyana in a little boat provided by another older prisoner, who gives up his own escape to allow the few younger men the room in the boat, and a chance to fight for France. There is plenty of adventure, and some sweet romance which our hero has with his wife, and a touching ending.

Is the movie unrealistic? Is it melodramatic? Is it wartime propaganda? Maybe to some people, but I loved it!

Yes, it's dated all right-in the best sense: it's got virtually the same cast and crew as "Casablanca"(though Michele Morgan is no Ingrid Bergman, lovely though she is-and as someone else pointed out, hers *is* a thankless role in an all-male film). It's full of action, suspense, atmosphere(the famous huge tank built on a WB sound stage a few years earlier really comes in handy, as much of the action takes place on ships and boats)-and humor, to temper the super-patriotic slant of the plot-after all, it was mid-war, and it was total war. Even so, Bogart's character is allowed to be somewhat ambivilent, which makes for a suprisingly timely impression all these years later. There are situations and dialogue which with any other cast would be unbearably corny, but in the capable hands of such as Bogie, Claude Rains, Greenstreet and Lorre, they're memorable, sometimes priceless moments. One example: On the eve of their escape, huddled in the dark next to a campfire, aged Devil's Island prisoner "Grandpere", suspects his fellow escapees(especially Bogart) might be less than sincere, and thinks he ought to elicit something more binding than a simple promise that they'll all fight for "La France" when they reach freedom. With perfect comic timing, Peter Lorre whines incredulously: "Do you want us to say our beads?!". Takes the corn right out of the sentimental scene.
This film is famous for containing "a flashback within a flashback WITHIN a flashback!" as film writer Leslie Halliwell pointed out in his book; it's nevertheless a slam-bang piece of entertainment.

Warner Bros. Pictures presents "PASSAGE TO MARSEILLE" (1944) (109 min/B&W) -- Starring Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains, Michele Morgan, Helmut Dantine, Sydney Greenstreet & Peter Lorre

Directed by Michael Curtiz

Unfolded in a complex flashback-within-flashback structure, this is the story of Matrac (Humphrey Bogart), a freedom-loving French journalist who sacrifices his happiness and security to battle Nazi tyranny. The film opens as French liason officer Freycinet (Claude Rains), stationed in London, tells Mantrac's story to a British reporter (John Loder). Freycinet reveals that Mantrac, happily married to Paula (Michele Morgan), was framed by pro-fascists and sentenced to Devil's Island. Here he engineered a daring escape with such lost souls as Marius (Peter Lorre), & Garou (Helmut Dantine).

Designed as a follow-up to the enormously successful Casablanca, Passage to Marseille utilizes the talents of many of the on and off screen personnel of the earlier Warner Bros. classic.

Despite the weaknesses, it's an acceptable--if curious--sort of wartime adventure obviously designed to appeal to audiences who responded so strongly to CASABLANCA. Passage to Marseille is not a bad film, but not up there with Casablanca.

Yes - there's Greenstreet & Lorre again!

Other films to feature the Greenstreet / Lorre combination were The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942), Background to Danger (1943), The Mask of Dimitrios (1944), The Conspirators (1944), Three Strangers (1946 & The Verdict (1946)

BIOS:
1. Michael Curtiz [aka: Manó Kertész Kaminer] [Director]
Date of Birth: 24 December 1886 - Budapest, Austria-Hungary (now Hungary)
Date of Death: 10 April 1962 - Hollywood, California

2. Humphrey Bogart
Date of Birth: 25 December 1899 - New York City, New York
Date of Death: 14 January 1957 - Los Angeles, California

Mr. Jim's Ratings:
Quality of Picture & Sound: 4 Stars
Performance: 4 Stars
Story & Screenplay: 4 Stars
Overall: 4 Stars [Original Music, Cinematography & Film Editing]

Total Time: 109 min on VHS ~ Warner Bros. Pictures ~ (03/07/2000)

Bogey at his best. He plays French newspaper reporter Jean Matrac who is framed on a murder charge after criticizing the Munich Pact in an editorial and sentenced to Devil's Island. He and a small group of convicts escape in a canoe when they learn of the Nazis invading France, ostensibly wishing to fight for their country. (Matrac merely wants to get home to his new bride and cares nothing about France after the way he was treated by its justice system.) They are picked up at sea by a French cargo ship bound for Marseilles and have numerous adventures aboard the ship including an air attack by a Nazi bomber and a mutiny. Arriving in England as France has surrendered before they reach Europe, all of the former convicts join the Free French Air Force. Matrac becomes a waist gunner aboard one of their B-17 bombers despite his misgivings about his homeland. I never fail to cry at the end, as many times as I have watched this movie since I was a boy. Absolutely incredible movie.

Long before Sean Connery broke into Alcatraz in _The Rock_, Bogart managed to escape from Devil's Island armed only with ingenuity, patriotic fervour, and a slightly dubious French accent and Gallic mannerisms, in order to fight the nazis in WW2. One of the most controversil scenes finds him machine-gunning some krauts who're waving a white flag and asking who the real murderers are. It's an underrated film, not Bogies best war movie, but certainly worth a look

Any film that reunites the Casablanca leads (minus Ingrid Begman and Conrad Veidt)is worth seeing, and on this front this movie is not a disappointment. The familiar faces from Ricks Cafe Americain are all great in unfamiliar roles, and the story-telling here is engaging. Sydney Greenstreet is particularly good (if not appealing) as a pompous, French nationalist with a fascistic streak, and Bogart plays the embittered romantic well. Peter Lorre oozes unctuous charm, even though you wouldn't want his character to date your sister. And other cast members effectively draw the audience into the war time drama.

The downside with this movie is that it is clearly a piece of war-time jingoism--far more so than Casablanca. The propagandistic angles help make the movie a curiosity, but they also detract from the film's entertainment/artistic value. Looking backward from the early 21st century, the characters' musings about their "beloved France" are idealized and embarassingly mawkish. Are we really supposed to believe that prisoners sent to a work camp as horrible as Guyana is depicted would get so teary eyed about returning to serve the country that wronged them? Highly doubtful. Nonetheless, the convicts here wallow in praise of La France, and we repeatedly hear the Marsellaise in the score, reminding us of France's glory and how loyalty to France transcends the inhumanity of the penal colony and all past wrongs done to our protagonists. Yeah, yeah, only in wartime Hollywood.....

The scenes involving Bogart's girlfriend/wife and son border on the saccharine; they are too romantic, too patriotic, and too cloying. And the final letter to Bogart's son, read aloud on a cliff littered with soldiers' graves, is embarassing to watch for a peace time audience. (The cynic in me suspects that the scenes dealing with Bogart's private life were added in order to bring a female audience into an otherwise tough-guy movie.)

The generation that lived through and fought WWII may find this film's romantic patriotism appropriate. Others, however, may enjoy the movie's drama but cringe and shrug-off the flag waving as a period piece oddity.

PS--Check out Across the Pacific, a film that reunites the Maltese Falcon leads---Bogart, Greenstreet, and Mary Astor.

This is a raw story about determination and love of country during WWII. This is perhaps my favorite Bogart movie...even better than To Have and Have Not. The ending is bittersweet and brought me to tears. First time Mr. Bogart ever did that for me. A well hidden secret...which is a shame that it is not more widely known. Don't pass this up!

On time and as discribed.

The seller's service was better than the movie.

The film opens with a ship on a foggy ocean. It is dedicated to the Free French who are fighting Germany. Next they show the Germans using the old audio device for detecting aircraft (instead of radar). Bombs drop on a chemical factory. "Till we meet again." A journalist from London, Mr. Manning, visits the Free French airbase. The Flying Fortresses are prepared for a night mission. [Are those miniatures?] Captain Fressenay tells Manning about Matrac. This story starts on a tramp steamer where they talk about the Maginot Line. In the Caribbean they spot something, a small boat with exhausted men. Are they fugitives from Devil's Island? Or miners who want to return to France? "The man is insufferable." The Captain of the ship warns the men about their status. They tell him their stories. [This pads out the film and provides personal backgrounds.]

Will the old man help them escape? They tell about Matrac, a journalist who was against the Munich Agreement. Crowds attack his newspaper office while the police ignore this riot. Political oppression? [Do some of the scenes recall "Casablanca"?] Will Matrac be framed for a crime? Will he survive in solitary? The prisoners escape. But there are too many for the small boat. "Good Luck." News tells of the fall of France. Captain Duval has taken command of the ship, he noticed the changed course. [Never underestimate your enemy.] This tramp steamer is armed with Lewis guns and a cannon. [Protection against pirates?] Will a German bomber find their position? "Man the guns!" They fire a cannon at the bomber that returns fire. Then the bomber is hit and crashes. Matrac fires at the survivors to destroy them all. Captain Fressenay finishes the story and tells what happened after they reached England. One bomber has not returned with the others. When it lands there are casualties; one doesn't make it. There is an inspirational speech at the end.

This is not a good story but reflects the thinking of many at that time. Was the death of Matrac done as a punishment? Would any tramp steamer carry a cannon or even machine guns?