Robert J. Maxwell The Casbah is accurately described under the opening credits as a neighborhood of Algiers that was built on a series of marine terraces and stops at the sea. It really was a seedy and fetid maze of dwellings that provided a home for criminals. In the Algerian War fought by the French, it was a hiding place for the nationalist rebels. I conducted a thorough investigation of the area by reading the first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry.The police have been trying to nab the notorious criminal, Pepe le Moko (Charles Boyer). However, he has many friends who warn him when the police are coming, and there is a labyrinth of hidden passageways and tunnels that make it extremely difficult. An investigator comes down from Paris to kick some local butt.He's met by frustrated local cops who explain the situation to him. The most memorable of the policiers is the smiling, philosophical, slightly oily Joseph Calleia. He's irresistible. The head honcho from Paris leads a police squad into the Casbah and Pepe and his friends run them ragged. Of course, if Pepe should ever stroll out of the Casbah, he's yesterday's news. Boyer knows he can't come out, and it fills his heart with melancholy because he yearns to go back to Paris. Ah, Paris -- La Place Blanche, La Gare du Nord, Les Filles de Joie, La Bourdaloue.Enter a wealthy tourist, Hedy Lamarr, who sports a perfectly elliptical face with a vertical axis, and who drips with the jewelry that catches Boyer's eye. Her real name, of course, isn't Hedy Lammar. Nobody is named Hedy Lamarr. Don't kid yourself about that. She was born into a royal Austrian family and named Prinzessen Brynhyldr von Speck und Brodt. Please, it doesn't make her less appealing.Among the denizens of the Casbah we can glimpse Leonid Kinsky. He was one of two of Hollywood's resident comic young Russians, the other being Mischa Auer. Vladimir Sokolov was Hollywood's ancient, mystic Russian -- the only one. He had a busy career.It's an interesting film, not gripping, and a bit stagy, but generally well executed. The musical score is strictly pedestrian but the photography and direction are quite good. There's a spooky scene involving the deliberate murder of the pudgy trembling traitor, Gene Lockhart, done to the overloud tune of a rickety piano. At the opposite end of the scale, a chipper song by Boyer, "C'est La Vie," threatens to turn the romantic drama into a musical comedy. It's painful to watch. The large supporting cast does well by their roles. Boyer is smooth and French, but it's hard to believe at this point in time that the ladies swooned with such abandon over Boyer and his accent. His resonant baritone was imitated by impressionists for years afterward. "Come Wiz Me...." Boyer has a serious problem, though. He has a native girl friend, Sigrid Gurie, who adores him but whom he shoves around and tells to shut up all the time. Well, we all know that Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Pepe should never have left the Casbah to intercept the woman of his dreams at the boat dock, at least not with Sigrid Gurie knowing about it.The ending is a sea of bathos though, in a sense, Boyer does finally escape from the Casbah.

secondtake Algiers (1938)Take the teaming alleys of the old town of Algiers in North Africa, cramped and multi-national, filled with intentional mystery, and you have the basis of a great movie. A great, exciting, unique, visually gorgeous one.And it delivers on some of those scores. But why is it also a bit clumsy and forced all he way through? Two main reasons, I think. First, some of the secondary characters are comic caricatures (like Gene Lockhart), and as if to confirm this, they are given some silly lines as well. Second, the direction, under John Cromwell, which is clumsy and patchwork. Some of the most ordinary lines are delivered with avoidable awkwardness. I don't think Charles Boyer is a very convincing Arab kingpin, nor is the chief policeman from Paris a bit believable. All of this stacks the movie against its terrific setting.The highlight might actually be the simplest to understand--the photography by the great cameraman James Wong Howe. Right behind, but most accounts, is the presence of Hedy Lamarr as a kind of sophisticated femme fatale, bejeweled and bewitching. At least from the point of view of Boyer, who at one point is transfixed by her bracelet, her pearls, and her smile, in that order. The sure sign of a doomed man.The drama does become more intense, and both the police pressure and the crossed lovers percolate a bit. Boyer remains perplexing as the leading man, as if always aware he's the leading man more intent on being charming (in that 1930s French way) than playing the part of a supposed boss. And just wait for the scene where he breaks into song and everyone comes around to listen. Good thing the photography never relents--you can watch the movie for the visuals alone.I'm not sure what gives this movie its reputation, but I'll throw up a red flag against it. The exotic local, the mix of nationalities, the odd assortment of actors, and the central romance might make seem to presage Casablanca (in those ways) but the comparison ends there. Don't be discouraged by the first twenty minutes, which is the weakest part. By the end the mood has changed enough to work.If you're wondering, this is a low budget production from Walter Wanger, a year before he produced John Ford's "Stagecoach." And the filming occurred in Algiers itself, which is part of the interest. Give it whirl. Try to find a sharper version than the lousy one Netflix streams.

richard-1787 I saw Algiers just a few days after its French original, Pepe le Moko, which doesn't do Algiers a lot of favors. So, before writing this review, I read the 20+ ones already posted here, mostly from viewers who had not seen Pepe le Moko first, to see how they reacted to Algiers without knowing the French original. Most of them liked it a lot.While I wouldn't go that far - despite a few of the comments, I found this movie not even close to Casablanca - I did find it enjoyable for certain things, if not for others.While I like Charles Boyer in certain movies (Gaslight, primarily), in this film he is radically inferior to his French predecessor, Jean Gabin. Gabin is very believable as a thief and member of the underworld; it is hard to imagine Boyer surviving there 10 minutes. Gabin could be rough and charming; Boyer is "suave", but there is no dark underside to it.Hedy Lamarr is indeed beautiful, and sometimes gets to do some acting here. She never overacts (as Boyer and some of the others do), so she is always fun to watch.The best acting, however, is in the character roles, some of which are in no way inferior to the original. Gene Lockart's death screen is well acted and magnificently staged; it is one of the best moments in the movie. Joseph Calleia is very good as the police agent throughout.Still, the best thing in this movie, for me, was the lighting and camera work. Often atmospheric, some of the shots are very strikingly composed. The next time I watch this movie, it would be tempting to do so with the sound off for most of it - though not when Vincent Scotto's music is playing. It is haunting and very evocative; another of the best features of the film.My only complaint about this movie is the end, which some previous reviewers liked. (Here comes the spoiler.) In the original, Jean Gabin commits suicide when he realizes he can't have Gaby; it is a chilling scene very well done. In the American remake Boyer gets shot while running to the ship; it makes him much more of a victim without control of his destiny, and in that sense was a real aggravation after having seen how it "could have been done." Other changes in the movie are interesting examples of cultural differences: in the French original, Gaby is the well-paid mistress of the wealthy overweight Frenchman; there is no question of marriage between them. In the American remake, they are engaged, and while there is no suggestion either loves the other, the relationship would have been seen as less immoral. In the same sense, the low-life is the French Casbah is much more clearly low: prostitution, etc. That is all glossed over in the American remake.So, a movie worth watching, especially for the lighting, the camera work, and some of the direction, as well as the acting of some of the subordinates. Watch this movie first, and then Pepe le Moko, and you will enjoy it more.

Jem Odewahn Cromwell's ALGIERS is basically a shot-by-shot English language remake of the French film PEPE LE MOKO (1937). This is not to say it is an unworthy remake- quite the contrary. With the smoldering Charles Boyer (nominated for Best Actor) as the French-born criminal hiding out in the depths of the Casbah, and the stunningly beautiful Hedy Lamarr as the engaged French tourist who he falls for, ALGIERS is extremely worthwhile viewing. Cromwell's capable and creative direction, impressive production and set detailing and the smoky black-and-white atmosphere photographed by stalwart James Wong Howe all make ALGIERS a fine film. It obviously influenced Curtiz's much-lauded CASABLANCA with it's depiction of the crowded, bustling exotic Casbah.The film hangs on the premise of career criminal Boyer allowing himself to fall for a woman, placing him in danger as he dares to venture out of the confining, yet safe, Casbah in a moment of passionate madness. Lamarr, in supreme close-up represents everything that the homesick Boyer longs for. His initial interest in her is for her jewelery, yet in a series of stunning, stunning shots he instead focuses on Hedy's tantalizing mouth instead of the sparkling jewels dripping off her wrists. Cromwell films the romance in forbidden snatches, with Boyer and Lamarr heating up the screen in their roles. In the film's most erotic moments Boyer, endlessly reminded of his longed-for homeland by Lamarr, likens the sound of her heartbeat to a subway train and the smell of her dark hair to the underground.Boyer becomes an intensely tragic figure as the film progresses, with his final scene (the film's finest) extremely memorable and oft-imitated. Boyer, lured out of "ze Casbah" by his passion, finds a sad, departing (endlessly beautiful) Lamarr staring out at the Moroccan shoreline from her ship. Boyer, handcuffed, screams out her name, running towards her, rattling on the gates that bar him. He is shot and killed, yet in the end is "free". Wonderfully presented.