Jean Gabin, Charles Boyer... Tony Martin. Martin is an amiable singer-actor probably best remembered today for popping up in a few Marx Brothers movies like The Big Store. This is a remake of Algiers with Martin as the thief Pepe Le Moko who is hiding out in the Casbah.
It's a quasi-musical: Martin sings a few songs and Yvonne de Carlo, who plays his girlfriend, sings one. It's in black and white, not colour though.
The female lead isn't de Carlo - that honour goes to Marta Toren, a Swedish actor who Universal briefly tried to push as a second Ingrid Bergman/Garbo. She isn't very good, with dull eyes and an unexciting presence - this was her first Hollywood film to be fair, though.
I thought de Carlo was wasted in her part but she's really good in it so may be not - the girl who loves Martin so much she betrays him. Peter Lorre is superb as the policeman determined to nab Martin and Thomas Gomez and Hugo Haas offer ideal third-world-backlot support.
Too much time is devoted to Douglas Dick (as an old friend of Martin's who betrays him), whose make up is distracting.
There's a hollow core in this film - I never bought that Toren liked Martin. I did buy he liked her and although Martin's miscast he tries. De Carlo, Lorre and Gomez are very good and the story still holds. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.
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