Word: moko
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Theatre, is an emotional experience. Director John Cromwell has succeeded in maintaining throughout a high level of tension which occasionally breaks out in explosive dramatic shocks. The mood, even in its happy moments one of ominous fatalism, is set by Charles Boyer with his gloomy portrayal of Pepe le Moko, the underworld ruler. Hedy Lamarr, whose haunting mystery is the answer to an unexpressed desire in every man's subconscious, also stands with Mr. Boyer the test of the long, electric close-ups. The picture is notable for its attention to those details which aid in heightening the effect...
Algiers (Walter Wanger) sets its scene in the bizarre crookedness of Algiers' shuttered, cluttered, labyrinthine native quarter, the Casbah. It is the story of the defeat of a magnificent criminal ego. Whimsical, moody, brutal Pepe le Moko, a jewel thief from Paris, is safe as a fugitive just so long as he stays in the Casbah. Knowing this, patient Policeman Slimane baits him with the thesis that the Casbah itself is his prison, then calmly watches and waits while this disturbing seed takes root. The lure to break prison comes in the shape of an incredibly beautiful woman. When...
Actor Charles Boyer's confident, romantic, tragic Pepe le Moko, and Joseph Spurin-Calleia's unhurried, calculating Slimane are cinememorable. So are Director John Cromwell's handling of this strangely fraternal, chaseless man hunt, and such intense scenes as that in which an informer (Gene Lockhart), backing away in terror as his executioners advance, jars a mechanical piano into action, dies to a ragtime tune. But best of all is the smoldering, velvet-voiced, wanton-mouthed femme fatale of Algiers, black-haired, hazel-eyed Viennese Actress Hedy Kiesler (Hollywood name: Hedy Lamarr). Her coming may well presage...