After several supporting pairings in such Warner Brothers classics as "The Maltese Falcon" and "Casablanca", character actors Peter Lorre and Sydney Grenstreet were given their own series, basically a sinister variation of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby's "Road" movies, taking them to exotic locations with calculating and sometimes confusing plots. Here, they are total strangers who encounter each other on a train and end up in a story of espionage, betrayal and greed where the Dimitrios of the plot is an apparent corpse at the very beginning of the film whom Lorre wishes to write a mystery story about. Through convoluted flashbacks, Dimitrios's amoral character is explored and Lorre learns through Greenstreet (sometimes at gunpoint!) of why so many people were interested in him.
At first, Greenstreet and Lorre seem to be on the outside of the plot looking in as various shady characters pop in and out of the film, involved with the mysterious dead man. Most interestingly involved in his life were Faye Emerson as the world-weary café hostess and gullible government worker Victor Francen who became a victim of blackmail thanks to Dimitrios's manipulation. When Dimitrios does appear (played by Zachary Scott), the film strikes a brief spark of interest, his agenda hidden through his down and out appearance which only comes to surface when he re-emerges to pay a debt to Emerson with great financial interest.
Like another 1944 Warner Brothers adventure, "A Passage to Marsaille", the structure moves in and out of the present at the beginning of the film to the past with confusing detail. Lorre and Greenstreet seem to have no point to keep reconnecting the way they do, and why Lorre would put up with the somewhat obnoxious Greenstreet beyond their initial meeting makes no sense. While Lorre is presented as an intelligent simpleton, the overly cheery Greenstreet talks so much (spouting philosophies which you know he abhors), that you long for him to either be quickly killed off or for Lorre to break down and demand that he shut up.
When the convoluted details of the first 3/4 of the film come together for a final confrontation between evil and evil, you might, just as I did, think "I sat through all of that for this?" Yet, this is a film which in some circles is considered a small masterpiece, but having tried three times to understand why, I have to come to the conclusion that for myself, the third viewing was not the charm.
At first, Greenstreet and Lorre seem to be on the outside of the plot looking in as various shady characters pop in and out of the film, involved with the mysterious dead man. Most interestingly involved in his life were Faye Emerson as the world-weary café hostess and gullible government worker Victor Francen who became a victim of blackmail thanks to Dimitrios's manipulation. When Dimitrios does appear (played by Zachary Scott), the film strikes a brief spark of interest, his agenda hidden through his down and out appearance which only comes to surface when he re-emerges to pay a debt to Emerson with great financial interest.
Like another 1944 Warner Brothers adventure, "A Passage to Marsaille", the structure moves in and out of the present at the beginning of the film to the past with confusing detail. Lorre and Greenstreet seem to have no point to keep reconnecting the way they do, and why Lorre would put up with the somewhat obnoxious Greenstreet beyond their initial meeting makes no sense. While Lorre is presented as an intelligent simpleton, the overly cheery Greenstreet talks so much (spouting philosophies which you know he abhors), that you long for him to either be quickly killed off or for Lorre to break down and demand that he shut up.
When the convoluted details of the first 3/4 of the film come together for a final confrontation between evil and evil, you might, just as I did, think "I sat through all of that for this?" Yet, this is a film which in some circles is considered a small masterpiece, but having tried three times to understand why, I have to come to the conclusion that for myself, the third viewing was not the charm.