drjgardner Think Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, and Sydney Greenstreet along with John Huston and what do you come up with? "The Maltese Falcon" of course. But think again, because no sooner had Warner Bros created one of the best films of all time, they re-teamed the actors and the director and cinematographer and came up with this piece of flotsam that is hardly worth viewing. Called "Across the Pacific", this 1942 film came out just after the Pearl Harbor attack, so the original script had to be changed from Pearl Harbor to the Panama Canal, although the name somehow stuck.It's nice to see some of my favorite Asian actors at work here, including Richard Loo (Master Sun from "Kung Fu), Keye Luke (Master Po), and Kam Tong (Hey Boy from "Have Gun Will Travel"). But other than that, the film has little value.

utgard14 Good WW2 spy movie with the three leads and director from The Maltese Falcon. The plot is about Humphrey Bogart getting tangled up with baddie Sydney Greenstreet and love interest Mary Astor. Greenstreet's a Japanese sympathizer and is trying to recruit Bogie. Good luck with that, Gutman. Bogart is excellent playing a character he was totally at home playing: wisecracking tough guy ladies' man. Greenstreet is villainous as ever and perfect at it. Just as in Maltese Falcon, Mary Astor is playing a stunning beauty that makes heads turn. Just like in Maltese Falcon, she doesn't match the character description. Perhaps Huston had a bit of a crush. Otherwise I don't get her being cast in these types of parts at a time when the likes of Ingrid Bergman and Lana Turner were around. Still, despite that element of the casting being off, Astor does fine.This movie has an interesting backstory. It was originally to be about a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor but when that actually happened in real life, they changed it to Panama. They never changed the title, though, despite the movie taking place nowhere near the Pacific. Then John Huston got called to serve before filming was complete so Vincent Sherman had to step in. Oddly, it seems Huston was the only one who knew how the movie was supposed to end so Sherman had to make up the final fifteen minutes or so of the movie!

atlasmb This film contains many aspects of the noir, including the clipped bantering dialogue with the clever intent. Coming soon after The Maltese Falcon, Across the Pacific is something of a mystery movie too.Rick Leland (Humphrey Bogart) is a disgraced military man with dubious loyalties. He gets on a Japanese ship that is sailing to New York City, the Canal Zone and the Orient. While onboard, he becomes familiar with the other passengers: a western businessman named Dr. Leland (Sydney Greenstreet) who has a penchant for all things oriental and a smalltown woman named Alberta (Mastor Astor) who is taking a pleasure cruise.But we sense all is not as it seems. Will Rick sail off into the Japanese sunset, bitter at the country that snubbed him? Will the doctor reveal an insidious intent? Will Alberta prove to be more than a romantic foil for Rick?The action takes place not long before the U.S. would be forced to enter the war. Tensions are high. Eventually there is gunplay and all motives are revealed. Along the way, ATP proves to be an interesting film. The ending reminded me of another film that would follow in 1959--North by Northwest. ATP is a high stakes game of cat and mouse that coexists with a lighthearted romance.My one complaint is that Mary Astor is not an actress I think would inspire lust in Bogart's Rick. Someone like Rita Hayworth would better fit the bill.

secondtake Across the Pacific (1941)This is some kind of cross between "Maltese Falcon" and the "Casablanca" and it has a cast that covers both movies, even though it is usually matched to the former since it shares the same director, the great young John Huston. It's hard to picture this turning into a gem even with these stellar talents at the top of their game--the plot is just too forced and canned. And the writing, not surprisingly, lacks the snap and intrigue of both these other films, even though screenwriter Richard Macaulay has some great films to his credit (including "They Drive by Night," also with Bogart). It's a decent film, filled with common movie tricks and turns, and it does have a huge range of scenes and turns of events, enough to make it worth watching.But this is a war movie, shot right between that great detective movie and that great early war movie. Being 1941, it seems to have the single goal, beyond entertainment, of presenting the Japanese as a new enemy. There is lip service to their great and unique culture, and some of the Japanese characters are charming and warm, but gradually most of them become duplicitous. By the end it's an all out guns and torpedoes affair, the last scenes occurring on Pearl Harbor day but in Panama (and with no direct mention of the attack itself, but lots of planes). In a twist, it's a Canadian who is the evil mastermind.If Humphrey Bogart makes a great, begrudging detective, or a great begrudging club owner, he isn't quite at home as an undercover spy trying to woo a single woman who happens to be on the same boat, and who happens to encourage him. Maybe it's the woman, the miscast Mary Astor, who is the problem (she was the problem in "The Maltese Falcon" as well), but Huston can't seem to see the awkwardness of what is meant to be a major thread in the movie.To put it another way, she is no Ingrid Bergman. But then, the movie is missing the great (and I mean great) character actors of the other films, especially Peter Lorre. It does have the equally great Sydney Greenstreet, who is at his best when a secondary character, someone not quite complex enough for the main role here. (His erudite, good humored, worldly nature was stretched thin the same way in the rather charming "Christmas in Connecticut.")Anyway, this is a fun film partly because of the actors who are a pleasure regardless of their roles. And it's a great example of how Hollywood was quickly responding to this new World War II reality.