This was meant to be called Flame to Stamboul and was to be a Maria Montez-Jon Hall-Sabu Technicolor epic. It wound up in black and white - which actually doesn't bug me as much as I thought it would because it's set in a nightclub and has many scenes at night, so color would be wasted.
It's kind of a Casablanca-ish film with war correspondents, local police chiefs, nightclub singers, secret agents. There's a lot of plot and while Robert Paige was underwhelming in the lead, Montez was actually quite good - she seems energised by the change of pace. And there's novelty with Sabu as a waiter singing songs like "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain".
But the film became worse as it went on - more confusing. I wasn't sure of the setting or who the baddies were - apparently this was a censor thing. It felt like it had been rewritten a lot - character motivations became confused.It also splits focus - Montez shares heroic duties with Louise Albritton and Paige with Kent Taylor.
It's a shame because this had a lot of potential.
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