Edward G Robinson and Claire Trevor are back but unfortunately not Bogie and Bacall (or Lionel Barrymore). Some random actor takes the Bacall part; Edmond O’Brien steps in for Bogie. At times I wished O’Brien and Robinson swapped roles because Robinson’s part is so flashy that O’Brien would have still made a decent fist of it, but O’Brien’s part could have done with the extra dynamism of Robinson.
Anyway, be grateful for what you’ve got and all that. Robinson is terrific and Trevor wonderful; she sings ‘Moaning Low’. Stories with this sort of Petrified Forest premise rarely fails and this one doesn’t; it also has some sweet post war idealism, along the lines of “nothing this bad is ever going to happen again now we’ve had a war” – although I note the Indian characters are simple morons who obey whatever the grandad character says and who sleep on the verandah.
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