Passage to Marseille

Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains, Michele Morgan, Philip Dorn, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, George Tobias, Helmut Dantine, John Loder, Victor Francen, Vladimir Sokoloff
Directed by: Michael Curtiz
Rating: Approved
Genre: Adventure, Drama, War
1944

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: During air raids in World War II, a French officer (Claude Rains) tells the story of five convicts who escaped prison so they could fight the Nazis.

Review:

Tim: There was significant evidence to suggest Passage to Marseille was going to be something special. It reunited director Michael Curtiz with Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Claude Rains, and Helmut Dantine just a few years after creating one of the greatest movies of all time, Casablanca. This one also featured a war story and it had a love story involved as well. While I consider this movie a good film and an entertaining one, lightning didn't strike twice. This movie is good, but it's not even in the same hemisphere as their previous collaboration.

It feels like there were some odd choices that contributed to the film not quite living up to expectations. One of the most unique decisions was to (apparently) follow the structure of the novel by telling a flashback within a flashback, within a flashback. It was kind of cool to see this unfold, but it was also fairly jarring. At one point I did have to stop and think through it- so the main story involves two men sitting at a desk and one is telling the other of a story of these men who he rescued from the sea. And within that story, a group of characters tell the story of how they escaped an island. And within that story, a character shares the story of another character's wrongful imprisonment on the island. It might have been cool, but it didn't make for the most fun viewing. You had to keep track of each different story and how the new information shared impacted the others. It gives the film this weird disjointed feeling, especially because the original story is far less interesting or compelling than many of the flashbacks. It ended up feeling like a lot of work for something that made the movie feel choppy. It would have been better to completely restructure the way the story was told.

I also thought a major limiter was the rampant use of models in the film. I understand a lot of films did that during this time period and many of those shots can be done without taking you too far out of the film. That didn't happen here. There's so many miniatures used that it becomes obvious and disruptive. It felt like a cheap way to try and tell an epic story. It wasn't very believable. That being said, some of the sets were much more impressive. I really enjoyed the climax on the ship- although miniatures were used some then, it still was a riveting plane/ship battle. That sequence was a solid action one and definitely one of the strongest scenes of the film.

The cast was interesting, because I went into this overjoyed at all the talent. The cast does work well, but there were a few unexpected hiccups. Now, I love Humphrey Bogart, but I wasn't buying his performance here. He was supposed to be French without even an attempt at a French accent. It was a weird performance that bothered me. He was good at times, but at others, it felt like he was going through the motions. I read afterwards that he was going through marital problems and wasn't committed to the film. It felt very much like that when I watched his performance. On the other side, I loved Claude Rains' performance. He's such a great actor and it feels like he always does good work. The same can be said for Peter Lorre, who adds so much in his small supporting role. Sydney Greenstreet is always great and although he's not the most likeable character here, he played the role well. I thought Vladimir Sokoloff as amazing in a small role. I wasn't as impressed with Michele Morgan. It felt like she and Bogart had zero chemistry and her performance as a whole felt generic. As a whole, there's so much talent here that the cast will undoubtedly be one of the strongest aspects of the film. It just wasn't quite as great as I expected.

Passage to Marseille might have a bunch of flaws, but it's still an entertaining movie. It portrays the French in a patriotic, favorable light. It touches on the sacrifices men (and women) make in wartime. It has a touching conclusion to its love story. This is a good movie, I want to make that clear. It was just abundantly obvious that the talent involved were capable of so much more than we got here.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Casablanca, Conflict, Action in the North Atlantic