These Rank films of the late 1950s misfired in such interesting ways. This has a fascinating backdrop - the Old Port of Marseilles, a hive of gangsters and crooks, which was cleaned out by Vichy and Germans in 1943. Many Jews were deported but also others - it's a terrific subject and you can imagine Warner Bros making the hell out of it in the 1940s.
The best bits of this film concern it - a German soldier accidentally killing a small boy, this is very affecting, and newsreel footage of the actual city being blown up. The film doesn't nearly gasp the storytelling opportunities - there is some Jewish presence, but no gangsters, who were a big thing in Marseiles at the time.
The central story is more basic but fine - two escaped POWs are hanging around trying to escape. They are played by Stephen Boyd, who Fox thought was going to be a star, and Tony Wright, who Rank thought was going to be a star. Neither are that good. Boyd is better than Wright who just doesn't have what it takes. If Rank wanted to appeal to Americans why not make one American instead of dumbly importing a second tier American based director, Argentine Huge Fregonese. Boyd and Wright have no rapport. If you don't think much of Dirk Bogarde and Kenneth More, try watching films where they aren't cast first.
They walk around the place, having quite a lot of freedom of the town (for POWs on the run they're outside a lot). Boyd romances a French girl,Anna Gaylor, despite having a girlfriend back at home (why not make her Jewish?). Wright hangs out with another expat, Kathleen Harrison, who adds some professional spark.
Then there's this whole subplot which is a whole other movie - James Robertson Justice is a doctor who is a serial killer. That's based on a true story, which is strong enough for its own film. I mean, that guy was amazing - doctor who would kill his patients, would pretend to run an escape route and off customers by saying you need to be inoculated, then going on the run and saying he only killed Germans, and working with the resistance. It's too interesting for this movie - it pulls focus. It feels weird that the race against the clock at the end is Boyd racing to find Wright before Wright is poisoned by Justice - I mean the whole city is being evacuated by Germans and we're in this serial killing plot that Boyd isn't aware of, and then Justice dies in a deux ex machina car accident (why not have one of his victims' relatives kill him? Or Wright? Or Germans?)
At the end Wright, Boy and Taylor go off on the boat and all these people have had their homes destroyed.
This would've been far better dropping the Justice plot altogether and replacing it with something related to gangsters and Jews - and then making a separate film about Justice's character.
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