Passage to Marseilles. 1944. Directed by Michael Curtiz.

(9/4/01-9/5/01)

Claude Rains is the very picture of benevolence in this picture. He is wise and understanding. This is definitely one of his best--certainly one of his most endearing--performances.

I don't believe I ever realized before how much of a Warner Brothers prison picture Passage to Marseilles really is. In fact, it bears a very strong resemblance to Each Dawn I Die in which James Cagney plays a crusading journalist (as Bogart does here) who is framed and sent to prison. Only here the prison is Devil's Island and it's a war picture as well. But it's a prison picture, nonetheless, made by a studio that specialized in prison pictures.

Humphrey Bogart plays the classic Bogart character--the reluctant hero. He is sick of the whole rotten system and when the escapees swear an oat to fight for France the camera moves in on his silent face. It's quite obvious that he is playing the Bogart character, but it is a character that audiences of 1944 responded to. And not just audiences of 1944; Bogart's reluctant hero captured the hearts of later generations as well. (His popularity was huge in the late 60s.)

This film has a few wonderful little character vignettes. Vladimir Sokoloff is touching as the old man on Devil's Island they call Grand-Pere. And Billy Roy lingers in the memory as the cabin boy who is so anguished when the Germans attack the ship. He adds so much to the picture in only a few minutes of screen time. On the other hand, Michele Morgan doesn't contribute that much as the heroine. Perhaps they didn't want an actress with a strong presence because this was basically a man's picture.

The film as a whole didn't have the impact it had on me thirty years ago when I used to watch it on late-night TV. Alas. I was especially disappointed when Claude Rains reads the letter that Bogart had wanted to send to the son he had never seen on his birthday. I used to really like that scene. This time around it just seemed trite.