Tampico (1944)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Beautiful, moving film.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Here we see a much stronger Edward G. Robinson challenging Victor McLaglen who was never really in the contest anyway. The film itself is not that good, but it does explore how people you work with who may appear to be friends are actually spying on you for the opposition. McLaglen plays an unconvincing Nazi spy who betrays Robinson leading to the sinking of his ship.Robinson marries a woman who is rescued from a sinking ship and doesn't have the necessary documentation to get into Mexico. He takes her under his care which is quite touching and shows the sensitive side of his acting repertoire.

Pretty good WWII fare. Naturally, there're Nazi spies and a big dollop of intrigue. Robinson's a tanker captain whose ship is sunk because someone on the inside has betrayed her course. Could it be the delectable Lynn Bari who's attraction to the homely middle-age captain appears suspect. If not her, who then. Unfortunately, Robinson who's cast as a romantic figure appears questionable. However, it was wartime with a shortage of younger leading men. Plus, the role calls for an accomplished actor, which Robinson certainly was. Note how the lighting darkens as the film progresses. In fact, the last 15-minutes or so is almost noir. Anyway, the special effects are outstanding, even if some painted backdrops of Tampico aren't. All in all, it's a decent time-passer if nothing special.(Catch a perfectly cast middle-age Robinson in two films from the same period—Woman in the Window {1944} and Scarlet Street {1945}.)

Maybe it's just me, but I had a hard time believing Edward G. Robinson and Victor McLaglen as officers in the Merchant Marines. But, this could have worked--as these men were not regular military men and were sometimes older and less physically fit men. However, Robinson really was not up to this part for another reason. When their oil tanker comes upon the wreckage of a ship sunk by the Nazis, they rescue a group of survivors--including Lynn Bari who is inexplicably attracted to Robinson. Why a seemingly 'hot' woman would come on THIS strong to a short, paunchy, middle-aged man didn't make sense. Perhaps Robinson's character was a nice fella, but she didn't even have a chance to find out before she started pouring on the charm and sex appeal. In real life, such a woman NEVER would have made such a play or the guy would have wondered what were her ulterior motives--as it just made no sense. With a different cast, perhaps this could work. Now it is NOT that I dislike Robinson--he was a fine actor and I ALWAYS try to see any film of his I haven't seen before (like this one). He just was cast badly...or, perhaps, it might have worked if the relationship between him and Bari had occurred slowly and realistically.Once the group was rescued, for some odd reason none of the other survivors seems to have remembered seeing Bari among the passengers. And so, the viewer is expected to somehow suspect her motives--like she's some sort of a Nazi plant. However, if you think about it, it just didn't make any sense. Why would the Nazis sink a ship and then toss a female spy among the debris and then have her marry the captain of a very insignificant merchant vessel?!?! Yet, for much of the film, you are expected to believe that she is a Nazi agent who has been sending reports to Nazi subs about the location of various ships--including, possibly, one she was on herself. Does this make any sense except on Bizarro World?! All this occurs in the first half of the film--how it's all resolved is something you'll need to see for yourself.Despite the bad casting and stupid plot, the film has some things going for it. Even miscast, I love Robinson and would watch him in anything (except porn....ewwww!!!). Second, if you turn off your brain and refuse to question anything, the film is entertaining. As far as wartime propaganda films go, however, it's at best average...at best.

Robinson easily holds our attention as Captain Bart Manson whose merchantman's whereabouts are betrayed by - whom? A combination of sea-adventure, spy-thriller and naive romance in which both the main performances and especially the photography are surely excellent and the action sequences sufficiently arresting not to tarnish the finish of the film as a whole. The central performance does not stretch (if "stretch" is the right word - he's never really over-stretched, is he?) Robinson as far as his Wolf Larson does (psychotically afloat in "The Sea-Wolf") but that really should not deter anyone from fully enjoying "Tampico", which has an excellent noirish atmosphere, particularly in the scenes set amongst colonnades and dark doorways in the last twenty minutes of the movie. Among the supporting roles, there is no weak or irritating contribution to spoil the force of the picture. Lynn Bari, in particular, is more than interesting in her work in this film, (the question of who her character really is and where she came from drives the plot; the audience must form its own opinion...)There are awkward moments in the directing, it has to be said, particularly earlier on, where the plot moves rather elliptically forward, but this is too small a criticism significantly to spoil the film.