Passage to Marseille
Tags: murder, flashback

Plot synopsis:
Titles against pictures of tramp steamer. Music includes Marseillaise and Marche Lorraine.Titlepage: "This is the story of a Free French air squadron. It is also the story of France. For a nation exists, not alone in terms of maps and boundaries, but in the hearts of men. To millions of Frenchmen, France has never surrendered. And today, she lives, immortal and defiant, in the spirit of the Free French Air Force, as it carries her war to the skies over the Rhineland."Current events.Title: "Somewhere in Germany." Bomber planes are flying. German anti-aircraft defences fire at them. The bombers' insignia is the cross of Lorraine. Bombs away. Target hit. On the way home, one bomber makes a detour over the town where Paula Matrac (Michèle Morgan) listens for them with her small son (Peter Miles). Bomber gunner Jean Matrac (Humphrey Bogart) drops a message: "To my wife. Till we meet again."Title: "Somewhere in England." Background music Hearts of Oak. War correspondent Manning (John Loder) is escorted by an RAF officer Lt Hastings (Mark Stevens) to the Free French air base. It looks like an ordinary farm. He is introduced to the liaison officer between the RAF and the Free French, Captain Freycinet (Claude Rains).
The airmen are sent on a mission. Manning exclaims, "Good Heavens! What is this? Planes being pulled out of barns? A haystack for a control tower?" as the farm is converted to an airfield, fences removed, etc. One of the airmen is Matrac. Freycinet goes to him. Matrac asks for permission to divert as it is his son's birthday. Freycinet gives it. The planes take off. Freycinet tells Manning that the planes are going on a pathfinding mission to Berlin. 2,000 bombers will attack. Manning asks about Matrac. Freycinet: "I could tell you a story about him I've never told to anyone. Would you care to hear it?"Flashback level 1. Freycinet's account to Manning.At the outbreak of war Freycinet takes passage on the Ville de Nancy, under Captain Malo (Victor Francen), bound for Marseilles with a cargo of nickel ore. There are three cabin passengers, including a French army officer, Major Duval (Sydney Greenstreet). They discuss the position of France in the war. At Panama they receive news of the fall of the Maginot Line.Two days out of Colon they pick up a small boat containing five men "pretty far gone." They are Matrac, Renault (Philip Dorn), Marius (Peter Lorre), Petit (George Tobias), and Garou (Helmut Dantine). Matrac says that they have been without food for twenty days, without water for five.Duval believes that they are fugitives from Devil's Island, 1,500 miles away. Captain Malo questions them. They claim to be French workers from Venezuela trying to get back to France to fight. Duval is sceptical.Freycinet warns the five men that Duval believes them to be escaped convicts. He himself also believes that, but is sympathetic. They confess that they have indeed escaped from Cayenne, but insist they only want to fight for France. They start to tell their stories. Renault says that Petit was a farmer whose land was confiscated and his protests led to his being transported for life to French Guiana.Flashback level 2a. Renault's account of Petit's story to Freycinet.French Guiana. Petit is among the convicts building a road, known by the convicts as Route Zero, because it will never exist. "Already it has been under construction for more than half a century, and for that there is exactly 16 miles to show. And for those 16 miles, there is one dead convict for every yard." Garou is there. "Formerly a mechanic and a professional racer of motor cars, he has killed his sweetheart during a lovers quarrel. In certain circles it was considered crude of him to have accomplished this end with an axe." A convict (Anatol Frikin) goes berserk and runs. He is shot down in the swamp. Alligators come.End of flashback level 2a. Return to level 1.Marius tells his own story. He was a safecracker and pickpocket. Renault tells his own story. He was a deserter in WW1. Ashamed, he went to Morocco to join the Foreign Legion, but was arrested.Flashback level 2b. Renault's account of his own story to Freycinet.At the Caserne Infanterie Coloniale (Colonial Infantry Barracks) Renault meets Grandpere (Vladimir Sokoloff) who has served his sentence and is allowed freedom within the colony, but is not allowed to leave. He catches and sells butterflies, saving the proceeds towards an escape. Sensing that they are patriots, he recruits Renault, Marius, Petit, and Garou to join his escape plan. Marius says they should recruit Matrac, a greater patriot than any of them. He says, "Matrac knows the ocean. He escaped once in a canoe from Venezuela." Renault says, "In 1938, during the Munich crisis . . ."Flashback level 3. Renault's account of Matrac's story to the convicts.Matrac is covering the Munich conference for La Verité Francaise, a newspaper that he publishes. He phones his story to his Paris office, where Paula takes it down. The resulting headline reads "Infamy at Munich. I accuse Daladier!" The paper sells out, but a gang of thugs storms the office and wrecks the presses. Police look on and do nothing.Matrac and Paula retreat to the country (Arly). He proposes and they marry. A café singer (Corinna Mura) sings Some day I'll Meet You Again.Paula sees a newspaper report that Matrac is wanted for murder of a newsman. She tries to persuade him to flee the country. At first he wants to go to trial to confront his accusers, but finally agrees.As they try to escape, Matrac is arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to 15 years in Guiana.End of flashback level 3. Return to level 2b.The escape plotters want to recruit Matrac but he is in solitary. Voice over by Renault: "Here on St Joseph's Isle is a building like nothing else in the world. One can go mad in this place. Nothing to see except blank walls. Nothing to think about except escape." Guards taunt Matrac. He retaliates and is beaten with a club. Marius contacts him.Matrac is released from solitary. The night of the escape another convict, Bijou (Frederic Brunn), overhears their plans and wants to join them. Voiceover by Renault: "We waited in the semi-darkness. Nine oclock. Nine-thirty. Five minutes to ten." They douse the only light and escape from the barrack room. When guards enter, Bijou is lying dead.As the escapees make their way through the jungle, one says, "Wheres Bijou? I dont see him." Matrac replies "He changed his mind." They make their way down stream by raft. At the coast, there is room for only five in the boat. Grandpere volunteers to stay and insists that they make a patriotic vow. They set sail.End of flashback level 2b. Return to level 1.Freycinet agrees to help the men.Captain Malo summons the crew and reads them a wireless message he has just received. "June 23. France, under the leadership of Marshal Petain, has signed an armistice with Germany." That night Captain Malo tells Freycinet that he is secretly altering course for England.Freycinet talks to Matrac, who says he wants to get back to Paula.Voiceover by Freycinet: "Imperceptibly we swung northward." "On the morning of June 26 I was awakened by the profound silence which had settled on the ship." Duval and his followers had taken control of the ship in order to take it on to Marseilles, believing that their duty is to support the Vichy government.A fight breaks out. The patriots overcome the Vichy supporters, but before they can stop him, the wireless operator radios their position to France. Petit overpowers him.A German bomber attacks the ship and causes much damage, but eventually Matrac shoots it down.Music: Marche Lorraine. Marius dies of wounds received in the attack. The German airmen have survived, and climb onto their floating aircraft. Matrac shoots them. Capt. Malo: "What are you doing? You cannot assassinate helpless men!" Matrac: "Look around you, Captain, and see who are the assassins."End of flashback level 1. Return to current events.Freycinet tells Manning that Matrac drops letters to his wife in France. Manning asks what became of the other escaped convicts. Freycinet points out Garou in the hangar welding and Petit working a crane. Freycinet tells Manning that Renault is the pilot of Matrac's plane.Planes return one by one, except V for Victor, which has been hit and is limping home on two engines. Renault tells Matrac that they cannot divert to his home town, but must fly straight back to base.Paula and her son wait. It is his birthday tea. They think they hear a plane, but none appears.At the UK airbase they wait. They hear a plane. V for Victor lands. Matrac is dead. Freycinet removes the message to Paula from his jacket.Matrac is given a military funeral. Freycinet reads the message that Matrac had written for his son. It is a stirring call to patriotic duty.THE END

Review: (Remember how Claude Rains threw away the bottle of Vichy water in Casablanca?) So we have to view this film in the context of the times.Bogey plays his character just like Bogey.....no attempt at a French accent which probably would have been disastrous anyway and the cast is a melting pot of nationalities.
They could make an educational film about the building and maintenance of an internal combustion engine interesting!The flashbacks are not hard to follow, and although a rather awkward story telling method in this particular film, don't really take that much away from the screenplay.Bogey's actions surrounding the survivors of the downed German plane were a bit surprising but hey, it was war.
The entire fight on the ship against the Germans was the best part of the film.Michele Morgan had absolutely nothing to do in this film which is too bad as she was a wonderful actress with a haunting beauty but this is basically a man's movie.
Wartime heroics never seemed exploited in quite so complex a fashion as "Passage to Marseille," directed by Michael Curtiz Bogart, a French journalist framed for murder because of his political views and sent to Devil's Island during World War II, escapes from his penal hell with four other convicts and winds up on a French freighter bound for home Hoping to rejoin the fighting Free French resistance movement, the men, all fiercely loyal patriots, become involved in preventing a takeover of the ship by Fascist sympathizers This relatively simple plot line is then surrounded by a series of extraneous plots and subplots which were related in a series of single, double, and even triple flashbacks, making any semblance of coherency virtually impossible Bogart's characterization is equally vague and complicated as he maintained an opposing balance of virtue and vice At one moment he is the picture of idealistic moral righteousness fighting against a callous system, and the next he debased his human nature as he brutally machine-guns some defenseless enemies His moral platitudes do not balance his immoral behavior, making for ambiguity and confusion...The most important saving grace of "Passage to Marseille" is the supporting cast headed by Bogart's "Casablanca" co-stars Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre, who all turned in strong character portrayals.
Humphrey Bogart and George Tobias were from New York (the accents prove it), Philip Dorn from the Netherlands, Helmut Dantine from Austria, Peter Lorre from Hungary, Victor Francen from Belgium, Vladimir Sokoloff from Russia, and Claude Rains, John Loder, Sidney Greenstreet from England.
Humphrey Bogart stars as a patriotic French convict who escapes from his island prison and journeys thousands of miles to help his country fight in the war.
The ship's captain and Claude Rains' character had plotted a course to England in defiance of their now Nazi-controlled government's orders.As the free French loyalists retake control of the ship, a traitorous radio operator broadcasts their position which is picked up by a patrolling Nazi bomber.
While much has been made of the flashback within a flashback utilized in the movie, one shouldn't overlook the great action sequences, particularly towards the end, that have you cheering on the French heroes in the film.
In an effort to capitalize on the film that they produced that won the Best Picture Oscar the previous year, the Brothers Warner united as much of the original cast of Casablanca as they could find to tell the tale of convicts from Devil's Island returning to fight the Nazis.Passage to Marseille might have been a better film if it been done with a straight forward narrative, or only one flashback, from the Humphrey Bogart character.
An arrogant militarist, he definitely finds the Nazi dominated Europe more to his liking.Michele Morgan is Bogart's wife and the only one in the film who is actually French among the principal players.
Pretty cool WWII story, told mostly through flashbacks, about French convicts led by Humphrey Bogart who escape from Devil's Island to go help their country fight the Nazis.
The men are picked up by a freighter bound for home and must deal with slimy Sydney Greenstreet, who isn't particularly opposed to the idea of a Nazi-occupied France.Reunites Casablanca costars Bogart, Rains, Lorre, and Greenstreet with director Michael Curtiz.
Claude Rains, Sidney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, George Tobias, Helmut Dantine, John Loden, Philip Dorn, among others, do excellent work under Mr. Curtiz's direction.
By the way, even though Lorre was an odd looking little guy, in real life he was one of Bogie's best friends thanks to his boozing and then losing money in card games.Some of the battle action at sea is interesting but as phony as phony can be--it's quite obvious those scenes were shot in a gigantic bath tub on the Warner lot.Incidentally if a reader hasn't visited Hollywood and taken a tour or two through the studios,allow me to tell you this as my wife and I were aboard a tram touring Universal Studios.
This film was a great document for the resistance of France during Nazi occupation in France during WWII in 1940 and the courage of Charles Degaulle after his refuse for the decision of general Philip Bataan the president of Vichi french government under occupation in 1940 and he went to England at the time of Primier Churchill that he supported Degaulle in his resistance to give France her liberty under (Le Croix Lorinne) the cross of (Joan of Arc) during her resistance against English occupation in France in 15th century.Degaulle used this cross in the french flag of the (French Free government) that was presented by him in england and after this way that was transported in Tchad and Algeria to make a collection for the different departments of French army to make the french Independence by their shoulders.That,s the end of final massage at the end of this film that Boggy sent with his corpse a massage for his son to complete with his friends and partners the french dream of making liberty to France under the spiritual leading by Degaulle the (Taste of freedom) after that in 1944 that made a liberty of France by french shoulders by the allies of England , U.S.A , soviet union but the under french responsibility in (Normandi) to be French forever..
Considering that the cast is headed by Humphrey Bogart,Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre--and that it is backed by a good Max Steiner score with its patriotic French themes--PASSAGE TO MARSEILLE is a disappointing film in the final analysis.
The storyline pits the French freedom fighters against the Vichy major (Sydney Greenstreet) who opposes their patriotism to France during the German occupation.If you can overlook the clumsy story structure and stay with it beyond the extensive opening exposition, you may find compensation in the performances Michael Curtiz has wrung from every cast member--including Helmet Dantine, George Tobias, Philip Dorn, Victor Francen, John Loder and French actress Michele Morgan.
With the French resistance theme as well as the presence of Bogie, Claude Raines, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, and even Helmut Dantine (Garou), who had a small part in Casablanca, it couldn't be anything other than a movie capitalizing on Casablanca's success.
It was a film for its time and yet contains poignant and timeless truths about character and patriotism.Bogart's elimination of the Nazi air crew is understandable in the context of the situation.
Always a pleasure to watch the Casablanca quartet of Bogart, Rains, Greenstreet, and Lorre, who made much more of their characters than their cheesy lines deserved.
"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.
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 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.
This film follows the story of a French Newspaper Reporter who is framed for a murder and sent to prison, he then escapes along with four others and sets about trying to help the French resistance take their country back from the Nazis.
Wallis reunited the same director, Michael Curtiz, and many of the same actors, Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains, Sidney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Helmut Dantine, and even the cabaret singer, Corinna Mura, from the prior-year's Oscar winner.
The pot was stirred with a script based on a Nordoff and Hall novel, and the result was "Passage to Marseille." While "Passage to Marseille" is often an entertaining film, the 1944 movie is no "Casablanca." Although much has been made of its complex nest of flashbacks within flashbacks, the structure is not difficult to follow, especially for modern audiences accustomed to movies that utilize fractured time or stories that are told in reverse.
The credibility may have been stretched a bit, however, because, after the cruel and unjust treatment that Bogart and his fellow prisoners suffer at the hands of French authorities, their desire to fight for France is difficult to comprehend.However, despite credibility problems, a flawed and contradictory central character in Jean Matrac, and a structure that reportedly is difficult for some to follow, "Passage to Marseille" is solid entertainment in the World War II morale-booster genre.
Of course any film with Bogart, Rains, Lorre, and Greenstreet is worth seeing, but one that has also been expertly helmed by Michael Curtiz, strikingly photographed by James Wong Howe, and scored by Max Steiner has to be several cuts above other movies from the period.
Passage to Marseille (1944) *** (out of 4) Big-budget Warner war film about a group of Devil's Island escapees who join up with the French to battle Germans.
The film has an all-star cast that not only has Bogart and Lorre but we also get Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, George Tobias, Philip Dorn, Michele Morgan, John Loder and several other familiar character actors from the studio.
The performances by the entire cast are very good but the film clearly belongs to Bogart who once again proves he was one of the all-time great tough guys.
One thing really weird about this film is how it represents France around 1938...True Daladier who was then Prime Minister let the Nazis grab half of Tchecoslovaquia but he hardly could do anything else : all major powers(Germany , Italy , Great Britain , Poland (!) , Ungary) urged him to do so while USSR and the USA were clearly showing their no interest of the problem...But all those pacifists were certainly not pro-nazis as they all rush (with the notable exception of the Communist Party) to arms and declare war to Hitler on September 3,1939..Also very laughable is the attack of the Humphrey Bogard's newspaper...Nearly all of major newsmen in France understood the terrible consequences of the Munich treaty and if a lot of people  were against the socialist and the middle of the road parties who were ruling France then, no one could express any sympathy to Germany ,the all-time enemy !....The Movie also seems to infer that France in 1940 were short of fighting soldiers...it isnt true..120.000 french soldiers were killed in action in 6 weeks prior to the Petain Surrender..this number shows definitely than French people in their huge majority were never pronazis...
It begins in England where Freycinet (Claude Rains) tells reporter Manning (John Loder) about meeting Matrac (Humphrey Bogart) and the other escapees from French Guiana after they are picked up by a ship bound for Marseilles.
It is a Chinese box of flashbacks explaining how the hero, Humphrey Bogart, got from crusading anti-Fascist newspaperman to prisoner on Devil's Island to escapee with several other prisoners (including Peter Lorre, George Tobias, and Philip Dorn) to Free France patriot.
Another scheme to trick "Casablanca" fans into the theater by including favorite actors from that film in a war story with an exotic setting, this idiotic mess has a famously convoluted structure involving flashbacks within flashbacks that renders it virtually unwatchable.
Designed as war propaganda, the movie is often ostentatiously obvious, most notably in the rah-rah score and in things like the little French boy screaming Viva le France!
Much of this was probably very stirring at the time, but it doesn't age well.The film also has a lot of typical Hollywood nonsense, like the way a movie in which everyone is French has major characters speak English while minor characters speak French and accents are whatever the actors walked in with.
I like Humphrey Bogart and even enjoy WW II movies so full of US propaganda here praising the Free French whose best exploits were a matter of theatre.This is in effect a remake of the 1942 film Pacific Passage with a french accent.
This time instead of the Bwanna who has gone native, Greenstreet is a French Major a martinet who wants to go Vichy.Then throw in Humphrey Bogart with the Papillion character called Jean Matrac framed for murder.
That was the purpose of these war propaganda films, some better than others, but some of the best coming out of Warner Brothers.Michael Curtiz gets an almost perfect gem with four of his "Casablanca" cast members providing outstanding performances.
Michael Curtiz's Passage to Marseille (1944) has a different story than most war movies but still in my eyes the story was very good and very interesting at the same time.
The movie stars Humphrey Bogart as Jean Matrac a convict who after serving 15 years in solitary confinement has bitter memories of hating France because of being found guilty of a murder he didn't commit to one of his co-workers, then after his sentence is completed he and his other convict friends (played by Peter Lorre, George Tobias,etc.) plan to go out to sea in order to help the French army with the WWII effort but at first in order to join they had to tell their convict life story from before they got to the ship to Captain Freycinet (played by Claude Rains) who was one of the few soldiers who trusted them along with the ship's Commanding officer, and there was a particular soldier who didn't like them which was Major Duval (played by Sydney Greenstreet)who thought they enlisted just to continue their criminal lifestyle for which he was proved wrong.
An above average, if inexpensive, Warner Brothers war-time movie about the Free French in England.
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.
One of several attempts to recapture the magic of Casablanca, Passage to Marseille brings back a number of the principals but fails to live up to its potential.We begin with a journalist's visit to a Free French air base in Britain during the Second World War from which we flash back to story of Matrac (Humphrey Bogart) a gunner on one of the bombers about leave on a mission and how he came to be there.
The French officer being interviewed by the journalist is played by Claude Rains and the flashback introduces both Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre.
***SPOILERS*** Clumsy follow-up to the award winning "Casablanca" with Humphrey Bogart as crusading French newspaper editor Jean Matrac who finds himself framed for a murder that he didn't, but what pro Munich sell out Frenchmen did, commit and sent to Devil's Island to spend the next, if he survives, 15 years in that living hell.
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.
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.
(Warner DVD rates 10 out of ten).COMMENT: This is the film that is determined to go backwards, what with its flashback within a flashback within a flashback, plus its war- time propaganda and its violent anti-German and anti-Vichy French sentiments.