Reviews

The first fifteen minutes are a lark. Jane Greer displays her great comedic timing which never was used to its best potential (for Greer at her comedic best, catch "The Big Steal").

After the first fifteen minutes, the film drags. Greer's character loses all of her comedic appeal, becoming just another girl looking for love, while Peter Lawford, Gig Young, and the rest of the cast try a bit too hard to sound funny, failing miserably and chewing up scenery in return.

Fortuneately, the charm of Jane Greer made this 70 minutes too long film worth sitting the whole way through. But she, and Gig Young have done far better work then this programmer.

This serves as a nice companion piece to "The Maltese Falcon", but DON'T compare it the masterpiece or you won't enjoy it. Also, keep in mind, this was during the beginning of WWII (obviously), so expect your typical "all Japanese are evil" racial stereotypes. It is upsetting to see that films like these just heightened the US's paranoia, driving us to send everyone of Japanese descent to internment camps.

You're going to really enjoy this film if you've seen modern Pulp adventures like the Indiana Jones trilogy or Sky Captain (though don't expect to see ANY mystical/sci-fi elements involved). This has it all: a hard-boiled hero, exotic locales, constant plot twists and turns, colorful villains, and a mysterious woman.

Bogart, as (almost) always plays the same character he always plays. but boy, does he fit in SO well into this film. Mary Astor, while not the pretty face that she was built up to be here and in "The Maltese Falcon", gives another great performance, and unlike Bogart, she was always able to give characters in a similar vein (in this case, the mysterious woman), each their own personalities. Her Alberta Marlow is not at all like "schoolgirl" Brigid O'Shaughnessey, but (at least openly) tougher, a perfect match with Bogart during their exchanges of dialogue, while remaining to be extremely ambiguous, never making sure whether or not she's an ally or a femme fatale. When all is revealed, looking back on it things made perfect sense with her character's attitude.

Sydney Greenstreet adds another great villain to his own rogues gallery. Here he's a man obsessed with Japanese culture and way of life, so much that he has become apart of and accepted by "the enemy". Victor Sen Young, who played a great shark grinned scumbag in "The Letter", does good here, looking very happy that he at least was able to speak coherently for once in a motion picture.

Huston's direction is really worth looking at, especially visually stunning during a sequence at a movie theater. Without his obvious presence and Bogart, this film would have just been another propaganda story of espionage. Sadly, when he had to leave the film for war duty, the final scenes were shot by otherwise competent (but nothing special) director Vincent Sherman. The final 15 minutes seem extremely out of place with the rest of the film, and its a shame Huston wasn't around a little bit longer to round up what could have been a quintessential piece of a feature 40's pulp movie.

Worth seeing, its a film that falls short of greatness, but man is it entertaining.

At first glance, this film comes off as a pure example escapism, something that may be extremely dated, but is just plain fun. Add to that, it stars great actors like the enormously underrated Douglas Fairbanks Jr (see Little Caesar, the 1937 Prisoner of Zenda, and Angels Over Broadway to see what I mean), Maureen O'Hara, Walter Slezak, Anthony Quinn, and Jane Greer, AND it is in that "glorious Technicolor".

What a disappointment, lets get the redeeming qualities over with first.

Maureen O'Hara, who I'm surprised has received negative reviews for her performance, is very good in this role. Like many of her roles, her character is ahead of her time. In this film she's strong, independent, ruthless, and never once in the film shows any real vulnerability. Despite her negative qualities (she at times comes off as vain, selfish, and really only caring about number 1), she never came off as unlikable.

The sets are nice too, and they sure don't make color films like they used too.

Now on to the rest. First, there is little action, and what is offered is nothing to brag home about. This is all dialogue, there is rarely a moment when any character doesn't yap excessively. I can always handle films, even "adventures" such as these, to be more dialogue and no action, but here, all the characters (except O'Hara's) are VERY poorly developed and one dimensional, and the story is bland. And to make matters worse, the film runs about 20 minutes too long.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr, and Anthony Quinn, otherwise good actors, REALLY chew up the scenery in this one. Fairbanks seems to be impersonating his dad, and what that means is an extremely expressive and stagey performance. Quinn, on the other hand, looks constipated for the first three quarters of the film and hams it up big time as the film reaches its end.

Director Richard Wallace really made a mistake for underusing two very talented actors of the cast. Walter Slezak (who had a great character role in Wallace's "The Fallen Sparrow", you'd think the guy'd give him the same sort of attention in this one) is, like almost everyone, one dimensional, and smoldering Jane Greer is given nothing more to do then to play servant girl to O'Hara, with about ten seconds in which she gets to show some sort of character. I wouldn't have minded staring at her (looking very sexy in the background) during the whole movie, my grade may have even gone up a star or two, but she unfortunately disappears 50 minutes into the film.

If it were shorter, the hammy performances of Fairbanks and Quinn and O'Hara's presence would have made this much more entertaining, but sadly, its 2 hours too long with a weak script and a slow pace.

Not worth watching.