A Major Disappointment

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

This fine cast makes the film come alive. Add dislike of the Nazis and love of country and you get an emotional movie making a point. What we forget is how many people died in that war and all the different stories that can be told none of them the same or alike but all unique. One wonders if the 50 million people who died of what difference their lives would have made if they lived. Dialog is good, acting on target and Directing holds up. I found it a little slow in the beginning but that is because I wanted to get to the convicts escaping part. The old man who sets up the escape has a story that tugs at your heart. Get snack, a tasty drink and.....

This isn't a very good movie, but James Wong Howe's brilliant cinematography makes it look like one. This is the sort of movie worth watching just to see how spectacular Howe was.Outside of that, it's a little dull. The flashback within a flashback within an etc. doesn't work that well, mainly because the movie fails to make any of its threads or characters all that interesting. 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. It's not that unusual for the time but I found it distracting. It might have been better if everyone spoke French, since the dialogue is often wretched (although, as with the characters, it is stylistically inconsistent, shifting from straightforward conversation to ornate, flower speeches).I do like this movie better than the first time I saw it when I was in college (in the 1980s), though I still don't like it much. But my god, what cinematography!

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. In many ways, this could be seen as a possible sequel to Casablanca, though certainly not in that film's league. I could see where you could rework the story to be about Rick, Ilsa, and Louis' post-Casablanca story. Cute use of models in early scene where the war correspondent arrives to speak with Claude Rains. This movie is slammed a lot for its use of the flashback-within-a-flashback-within-a-flashback technique. Normally I'm not a fan of that myself but here I didn't think it was confusing like critics claim. The ending is kind of depressing but realistic. War is hell, after all.

See it – This is more of an adventure movie, but it takes place during WWII, so we'll call it a war movie. The story is told in a flashback, and flashbacks within the flashback. 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. Adventures take place over land, air, and sea. The scene where Bogart is furiously firing his machine gun from the ship deck railing at attacking German aircraft is one the most iconic moments in early Hollywood history. I love watching WWII movies that were made while the actual war was still going on. This inspirational classic is heroic and tragic, yet full of hope. 2.5 action rating.