StanleyWheeler

 

Movie Review

Algiers (1938)

 

Hypnotic.

Not so much a roller coaster as a merry-go-round.

Algiers, directed by John Cromwell and starring Charles Boyer as Pepe le Moko, Sigrid Gurie as Ines, and Hedy Lamarr as Gaby, is a hypnotic merry-go-round of a movie. A jewel thief, Pepe, is wanted by the French police. He remains untouchable in the confines of the Casbah—that maze of attached buildings, alleys, terraces, and dead-ends. He lives like a king in the Casbah, but he longs for Paris. Ines, whose eyes smolder with desire and hate, longs only for Pepe. She’s his girl—until he meets Gaby. The beautiful, high-class, jewel-flaunting Gaby is affianced to a wealthy man she doesn’t love. The marriage is strictly a business arrangement. She reminds Pepe of Paris and all his favorite places there. To Pepe, Gaby is Paris.

A detective has come from Paris to put the bag on Pepe for his thefts. He soon learns that the Casbah is nothing like Paris. However, the law has a man in the Casbah in the form of Slimane (played by Joseph Calleia). He is in the Casbah every day. He and Pepe know each other well. Slimane tells Pepe that he will take him eventually. When Pepe and Gaby fall for each other, Slimane sees his opportunity to lure Pepe from the safety of the Casbah and capture him.

The movie drifts along without a lot of action and it is fairly predictable. The elements in this picture from 1938 coalesce to create a hypnotic trance of fascination. The complete absence of color paints the ideal atmosphere for the film—a sea of .black and white swirled in shades of gray. Pepe almost always wears black, and Boyer’s deep voice demands attention. Gaby’s beautiful face also seizes the eye.

Ines and Slimane are the most interesting characters. Slimane slithers back and forth between the Casbah and the outside. The fez with its hanging tassel emphasizes that his head is almost always held at an angle rather than straight up and down, hinting that he is one of whom to be wary. His danger is the cunning kind. However, Pepe’s infatuation for Gaby, in combination with his ill treatment of Ines, the woman scorned, creates the height from which Pepe will fall. Pepe treats Ines with contempt, ignoring her warnings and pleadings. Finally, when she has saved him from the police trap, and it looks as if he will return to her arms, he runs instead to his doom. Ines possesses an entire hypnotic aura all her own which centers on her smoldering eyes. She is Esmeralda the gypsy girl grown into a woman, and there is almost nothing she will not do to prevent Pepe from leaving her for another woman.

There are several other characters in smaller roles. The blowhard thief Carlos (played by Stanley Fields), the jeweler (played by Alan Hale), and some smarmy coward whose name I don’t remember—but he played it well, and got what we all knew was coming to him.

It’s a slow, pleasant ride—a merry-go-round with soothing music and enchanting sights. Watch it if you get the chance. It's available on the Hollywood Classics app for Roku.

If Algiers puts you in the mood to read a work of romance and mystery set in a simpler time, let me recommend Smoke, my noir detective novel set in 1948.

Smoke is available here.