JPA.CA This is a fascinating story with intriguing progression and characters. The flashbacks and twists throughout keep you absorbed. The dialogue is snappy; the music fits perfectly. Bogart is central of course but the full supporting cast is terrific and provides greater depth. Most importantly - whether yesterday or today - there's always something to be learned from those who fight for freedom. What sacrifices do we make or measures do we take to protect our freedom today, and what do we learn from how that parallels this story? Times change, but the principles remain the same. This movie is a simple but great reminder of that for me.I thoroughly enjoyed this and rate it among my favorites along with other Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, and Randolph Scott films.

jacobs-greenwood Directed by Michael Curtiz, reuniting several actors from Casablanca (1942), with a screenplay by Casey Robinson and Jack Moffitt that was based on a novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, this somewhat confusing war drama adventure recognizes the contributions of the Free French in Europe during World War II.Per an armistice signed with Germany, France and its people were divided - the Vichy were friendly with Adolph Hitler and the German Nazi party. This film tells a fictional story of five prisoners in France's Devil's Island who escape to fight for their country's freedom by joining a Free French bomber force, whose base of operations was in England. Humphrey Bogart as Jean Matrac leads Renault (Philip Dorn), Marius (Peter Lorre), Petit (George Tobias), and Garou (Helmut Dantine); all are initially assisted by a former Devil's Island prisoner, now resident butterfly collector with money, named Grandpere (Vladimir Sokoloff).The escapees make their way down a river and into the ocean where, after more than 20 days at sea, they are picked up by the freighter Ville de Nancy, which is on its way to Marseille with a cargo of nickel carbonate. The ship, which had been at sea during the political events which led to the armistice (preceded by the 'unthinkable' collapse of the Maginot Line), had a diverse set of Frenchman on-board including some which were for a free France, most notably its captain Patain Malo (Victor Francen) and passenger French military Captain Freycinet (Claude Rains), and others which were sympathetic to the Vichy, like Major Duval (Sydney Greenstreet), his ass-kissing yes-man Lieutenant Lenoir (Charles La Torre, uncredited), the ship's chief engineer (Edward Ciannelli) and radioman Jourdain (Hans Conried). A microcosm of the conflict in Europe plays out aboard the Ville de Nancy, including an attack by a German bomber that leads to Matrac's controversial killing of some (so called) 'innocent' plane crash survivors.The movie actually opens with a nondescript bombing run over the Rhineland, during which Matrac drops a love note to his wife Paula (Michele Morgan), followed by a journalist-war correspondent named Manning (John Loder) being escorted to the hidden Free French base in England. Manning then learns the story behind the Free French operation, and some of its men, from Freycinet which includes this aforementioned "passage to Marseille" via flashback. This flashback includes a subsequent flashback telling Matrac's (and Paula's) story.

blanche-2 "Passage to Marseille" is a Warner Brothers film starring the usual Warner Brothers stellar cast: Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, and Claude Rains, and also featuring Michele Morgan, George Tobias, Helmut Dantine, Philip Dorn, and John Loder. Though no one seems to like the comparison with "Casablanca," it does seem to be trying to cash in on that film's huge success when one considers the cast and Bogie's conflicted character. But "Passage to Marseille" is a good film on its own, despite the obvious comparisons.The story is told in flashback, and also in a flashback within a flashback. The film begins in a secret base in France that's disguised as a farm, and one of the characters asks Captain Freycinet (Rains) about a pilot (Bogart). Turns out that Bogart, Lorre, Tobias, Dantine, and several other men are Devil's Island escapees who were picked up by a ship, Ville de Nancy, which is on its way to Marseille. The sympathetic captain hears their individual stories. All want to fight for France.Matrac (Bogart) was a journalist opposed to the Munich Pact, and the newspaper he worked for was leveled to the ground. The focus is mainly on his character; he has left a wife (Michele Morgan) and a little boy he's never seen.Some very exciting scenes in this entertaining and often poignant film, sturdily directed by Michael Curtiz, with excellent performances. Definitely worth seeing, even if it's not the best of the WW II genre.

Robert J. Maxwell An above average, if inexpensive, Warner Brothers war-time movie about the Free French in England. Five French convicts manage to escape from Devil's Island with the help of Grandpere, a patriotic ex-convict who has managed to save enough money to buy the escapees a canoe. He makes them promise that when they escape they will fight the Germans who have occupied France. All but Bogart take the oath.What a bunch of Frenchmen they are too. Grandpere is a Russian. The rest of the group include a New York Episcopalian, one Slovakian Jew, one Jew from New York, a Dutchman, and an Austrian anti-Nazi. That's Warners for you. As long as they had an accent they could be anything. George Tobias does decently by his French accent. Bogart isn't required to try.It's a decent movie -- full of propaganda of course, but well acted and thoroughly dramatic, written by Nordoff and Hall ("Mutiny on the Bounty") and directed by craftsman Michael Curtiz. The picture is deadly serious. When a German aircraft attacks the freighter the convicts are on, Bogart not only helps shoot it down but then machine guns the helpless German crew as they climb onto the wings of the wrecked plane. It's a brutal scene today, and probably was at the time.The structure is a little complicated. There is a flashback within a flashback, for instance. (I think one of the narrators is named Marlow. Is this an echo of Conrad?) But we never get lost. There is an action scene near the beginning, in which Free French flying fortresses bomb occupied France and fight off German planes, but most of the film is taken up with the journey made by the convicts from Cayenne to the French airfield in the English countryside.The film is studio bound and the maritime scenes are tank bound, but art direction is up to Warners' standards and sometimes looks better than the real thing. Makeup did a fine job too.A bitter and efficient movie. Worth catching.