Sirocco (1951)

Very disappointing...

Memorable, crazy movie

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The acting in this movie is really good.

it reminds Casablanca and a lot of other films about same theme. it has the virtue to be a kind of crossroad of genres. and , the great thing, it is a film with Humphrey Bogart. the same. nothing new or original or seductive. at the first view. but... . each film with Bogart is a form of revelation about him. because it is really the best American actor but that title has a profound source. not only the art or the dialogs, the script or the gestures but something who becomes magic, a spectacular mixture of force and vulnerability who has as result a hero out of each ordinary definition. a war film and a love film. and, more important, a magnificent actor. that is all. Sirocco is not a surprise. maybe not a delight. but a very useful lesson. and that is a serious great stuff.

An old novel (Coup de Grace, 1931) offered Humphrey Bogart the type of tough Casablanca role that made his name. In fact, Bogey even wears his Casablanca trenchcoat. Alas, the character here doesn't have the redeeming virtues of Rick, despite his last-minutes change of heart. The resemblance, and the character himself, is too superficial. His end is a disappointment too. As the hero, co-star Lee J. Cobb cannot carry the film at all. In fact, he is miscast. He is too heavy, too dull. Producer Robert Lord had made good use of Bogey in The Black Legion but in this Sirocco he is totally wasted. On the other hand, the film does feature Marta Toren. Any movie with Marta Toren is a must-see movie in my book. Zero Mostel and Everett Sloane are present in this one too.

Released in 1951, we have a very formulaic Bogart movie that was shamelessly ripped-off from his 1940's classic 'Casablanca'.Here we have Bogey once again involved in questionable shennanigans somewhere down amongst the Arabs. This time it's Damascus. Again, he's an American on the edge who has been hardened by past adversity. He has no national allegiance, no political ties, no loyalties but himself and no beliefs but money. The French are also, once again, the erstwhile authorities, but this time they're in conflict with the indigenous population rather than the Bosch.There's a femme fatale and a fractured love triangle as in 'Casablanca'. There's a comradeship of convenience between Bogey and a senior authority figure, just like 'Casablanca'.It's a very noirishly lit and filmed piece which seemed to suit the character Bogey so often played. Yet something is missing.This movie could almost be a sequel to Casablanca. For those who wondered what became of his character after the tearful separation from Ingrid Bergman; here it is. With the assistance of the police chief, he fled to Damascus, and a decade later was making his way running guns to the rebels.The ending, however, is a little more down-beat.It's well worth a watch - what movie with Bogart isn't? He always gave a fascinating screen persona that made up for a lot of other inferior elements. But one star doesn't make a classic, and this piece will never match his best.

Even the biggest stars and finest actors are entitled to the occasional turkey and Thanksgiving came early in 1951 for Bogie, Lee Cobb and Everett Sloane. To watch him here virtually phoning it in it seems barely credible that a scant two years earlier Lee Cobb had galvanized Broadway when he created the role of Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's Death Of A Salesman, nor does Sloane retain anything of his outstanding performances in Citizen Kane, The Lady From Shanghai, The Enforcer nor does his lacklustre performance give any hint of what's to come - his brilliant Hollywood agent in The Big Knife, Graziano's manager in Somebody Up There Likes Me, for example. Marta Toren died tragically just months short of her thirty first birthday but she died metaphorically every time she tried to act - and perversely for a Swede had a filmic penchant for the middle East having 'starred' previously opposite Tony Martin in Casbah, the third and by far worst remake of Pepe Le Moko. In truth there's not a lot to praise here, Joseph Kessel was a fine novelist whose L'Armee des ombres became the basis of what is arguably the finest film about the Resistance ever made, yet what they did to his novel Coup de Grace here doesn't bear thinking about. Bogie is, of course, always worth watching and Bogie completists should and will see it but that's about the best you can give it.