Word: moko
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...almost as solid a cliché, in American romantic kidding, as Mae West's "Come up and see me some time" used to be. The Casbah owes its popularity to Detective Ashelbe's tried & true romantic tale about the French super-crook Pépé le Moko (Tony Martin), who just sneers at the cops as long as he keeps to the native quarter of Algiers, but doesn't dare venture outside. It is also the story of a plainclothesman (Peter Lorre) who languidly bides his time; of a native girl (Yvonne de Carlo), weighed down...
This was good reliable fun when Jean Gabin starred in it (Pépé le Moko, 1937) and when Charles Boyer and Hedy Lamarr adorned it (Algiers, 1938); it is good fun still. The older versions were slicker moviemaking but took this likable trash more seriously than it is worth. The new version has just about the right easygoing attitude. Peter Lorre can always be counted on. Tony Martin and Yvonne de Carlo, who have never before seemed entirely human, are simple, likable, even believable. Neatest measure of John Berry's sensible directing: the leads...
...latest movie version (there have been four U.S. ones) of Tolstoy's lesser masterpiece. It is by far the costliest ($2,000,000) but far from the best.* Sir Alexander Korda and his British bankers provided the money; France's famed Director Julien Duvivier (Pepe Le Moko, Panic) contributed' his talents...
...Pepe Le Moko," from which United Artists made "Algiers" in 1938, is in most ways a better picture than its carbon copy. United Artists knew a good thing when they saw it, and they took large chunks--still recognizable shots, and in some cases apparently the very same sets--of the French original as a backdrop for Boyer, Lamarr, Sigrid Gurie, and Gene Lockbart...
Having a copy from Hollywood for comparison, serious cinema students will find in Pépé le Moko an excellent example of a prime Hollywood weakness-obeisance to its technical proficiency. With no scenic splendors to distract its attention, the French film studies its character with thought and patience...