One of my favourite books at high school (I fully realise this types me as a major film nerd) was The RKO Story, an excellent history of the most under-achieving major studio of them all. (There are a bunch of similar studio histories – The MGM Story, The Paramount Story, etc, and I’ve read them all… The RKO Story remains the best.) Ever since then I’ve had a soft spot for RKO movies – the slightly odd nature of them; they always seemed a bit less respectable or something than those made by the other majors: Bob Mitchum thrillers, Jane Russell musicals, Howard Hughes vanity projects, never-ending remakes of Seven Keys to Baldpate, Tim Holt Westerns. I always wanted to see Action in Arabia – it sounded so junky and exciting. Years later I got the chance to see it – and what do you know I was right.
The influence of Casablanca is all over the first half of this film, from its thumping opening montage (about the Arab world rather than Casablanca), it’s world weary hero, casino setting, Nazi agents, and dodgy French police. George Sanders is the smooth journo investigating a mystery in Damascus. He acts like the typical bored Sanders, full of dripping vowels and sophistication, but he’s also pretty handy with a bit of rough stuff.
Then in the second half Sanders goes out into the desert and this becomes more of an action movie: enemy camps, shoot outs, dressing up as Arabs, and a big finale. Good B movie fun. Virginia Bruce isn’t much as the femme fetale-or-is-she (if I’m not mistaken she kills a guard in cold blood and gets away with it) but Gene Lochardt is fun as a shonk and Alan Napier makes an enjoyable villain.
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