A Yank in Libya (1942)

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Brilliant and touching

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

An American reporter in Libya discovers that the Nazis are trying to arm the Arabs and assist them in rising up against the British. Several people eventually combine to foil the plot. Sounds promising but it is mainly flat and tedious with huge amounts of stock footage that hardly matches the original footage. As Mike Malone the reporter Walter Woolf King is rather irritating and the talented Joan Woodbury doesn't have much to do as the main female lead. The two match up at the end but there is hardly a spark between them. Fortunately there is H.B. Warner as the British Consul and Harry Parke (aka Parkyarkarkus) to liven the film up when they are on screen. Several actors wear beards and try to look like Arabs without much success. Amarilla Morris portrays an exotic dancer and is pleasing to look at but apart from her gyrating hips there is not much to get excited about.

Mediocre War-time tale set in the sands of Libya. An American war correspondent, Mike Malone(Walter Woolf King)stumbles on possibly the story of his career. His mission to Libya turns out to be more adventure than he bargained for. Malone stumbles upon a Nazi plot for an uprising of Arab tribes. He pilfers a German made rifle for proof of what he has discovered and after being chased across the desert, he has a pretty stranger(Joan Woodbury) hide the weapon for him. He goes to British Intelligence for help and learns they already know of the plot. Double-crossings, secret alliances, barroom brawls and a belly dancer(Amarilla Morris) keeps the action going. Other players: H.B. Warner, Duncan Renaldo and Harry Parke.

You don't expect much from a PRC picture, and with rare exceptions--mainly from Edgar G. Ulmer and a few by Joseph H. Lewis or Lew Landers--that's exactly what you get: not much. This "epic" about Nazis in Africa trying to incite an Arab revolt against the British isn't much different. The script, by longtime PRC hacks Arthur St. Claire and Sherman Lowe, is trite, laughable, full of unfunny "wisecracks" and plot holes the size of Outer Mongolia. The direction, by longtime PRC no-budget specialist Al Herman, is semi-comatose at best. The performances, though--except for spectacularly incompetent and irritatingly hammy lead Walter Woolf King--aren't really half bad. Veteran comedian Parkyakarkus is actually the best thing about the film. He plays a guy from Brooklyn masquerading as a razor-blade salesman and brightens up the screen considerably when he shows up. He's got great comic timing, charm to spare and seems to be having a heck of a good time. Duncan Renaldo is fairly convincing as an Arab sheik--despite his Spanish accent--and veteran bad guy George J. Lewis as Renaldo's Arab rival does his usual fine job of villainy, even if he goes a bit over the top sometimes. Joan Woodbury is quite pretty and has a nice light touch, and she and Renaldo have great chemistry together, although--like the rest of the cast--she has none at all with King. H.B. Warner, whose career stretched back to the silent era, lends a shred of dignity to the low-rent proceedings, even though he blows his lines several times and, PRC being PRC, they weren't cut out. There's a great deal of stock footage spliced in from a big-budget silent movie with a similar Arab theme--although I have no idea which one it is--and, PRC being PRC, no effort was made to try to make it inconspicuous: I've seldom seen stock footage that was so blatantly obvious."A Yank in Libya" isn't very good, of course--well, OK, it stinks--but it would be worth a look just to see Parkyakarkus in his prime. I had heard of him and knew that he was the father of actor/director Albert Brooks and Super Dave Osborne, but had never actually seen him in anything before. It was worth watching this tenth-rate PRC "extravaganza" just to see him in action. Otherwise, forget it.

Although this film stars H.B. Warner, he is certainly not the central character, that role being fulfilled by Walter Woolf King, a little known actor, who portrays an American war correspondent who has unearthed a Nazi plot to foment a rebellion among the Arab tribes. In fact, Warner's part is rather minor. The story is pedestrian but the acting is good. There is not much big action, the only scenes promising it being at the end of the film, but, it doesn't come off. The chief of the attacking Arabs, making a sudden recovery from a Luger bullet at close range, prevents it. It turns out a small medallion on his chest stopped the bullet!Neither Leonard Maltin nor Martin and Porter list this film in their filmograhies. I got it on DVD in a budget set of eight "War Classics". The plot of a Nazi conspiracy to foment a revolt of the Arab tribes in Libya is the nearest it gets to WWII. The sheik is played by Duncan Renaldo, perhaps better known as the Cisco Kid both in film and on TV. The Arab villain is portrayed by the prolific George J. Lewis with whom any fan of serials would be familiar, being a stock villain in that genre. He only appeared in about 260 films! Some comic relief is supplied by Parkyakarkas posing as an Arab selling razor blades!