Develiker terrible... so disappointed.

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

writers_reign George Tobias has no scenes with Michele Morgan in this Casablanca reunion entry. For some reason I have never seen it but I was in Paris when Michele Morgan who WAS truly angelic died at the age of 96 a few days ago as I write; I was buying dvds, primarily French but a soupcon of Hollywood, as I often do at this time of year and on my return I chose to watch this one first as a tribute to a beautiful and very fine actress. Alas, she is given little to do and it is easy if not facile to see her as the token 'foreign' leading lady, the Ingrid Bergman part if you will in this never-going-to-work repeat of director Michael Curtiz, top-billed Bogie, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and uncle Tom Cobleigh and all. The flashback-within-flashback gimmick is probably where The Locket got its ideas from and though it's serviceable at best it was especially poignant to watch Michele Morgan in her prime teamed with the one American actor who most resembles Jean Gabin, arguably her best co-star.

Casablanca3784 I suppose Warner Brothers was trying to make hay out of "Casablanca" which, in 1944 when "Passage" was filmed was still very far from becoming one of, if not the greatest American film;I say it was. Yes, as I viewed it thanks to Mr. Turner, I did feel a bit "Casablankish" but it was merely spotty, illusory but not serious. In no way can "Passage" compare to "Blanca" yet I found it, although a bit corny at times, quite entertaining. Bogart's cynicism, the linchpin of "Blanca" is quite obvious because his main duty was to get back to France to see Michèle Morgan rather than to fight Nazism while the rest of his fellow escapees from Devil's Island were true blue patriots. Vive la France and so on and so forth. Bogart, on the other hand, was framed by his "beloved" France which resulted in his sweating out the brutality of French Guyana in all its splendor. Although missing the incredible Ingrid Bergman, this film does offer some of the "Blanca Boys" such as Peter Lorre and Claude Rains. 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. Those wartime battle scenes at sea were actually shot using miniature ships and planes sailing in and hovering over large barrels of water.All in all, "Passage" could never be rated, at least by me, as BAD just by virtue of Humphrey Bogart's starring role. The guy didn't become an icon for doing nothing.

blanche-2 "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. The film begins in a secret base in France that's disguised as a farm, and one of the characters asks Captain Freycinet (Rains) about a pilot (Bogart). 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 sympathetic captain hears their individual stories. All want to fight for France.Matrac (Bogart) was a journalist opposed to the Munich Pact, and the newspaper he worked for was leveled to the ground. 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. Definitely worth seeing, even if it's not the best of the WW II genre.

MartinHafer This is one of the better American propaganda films made during WWII--as it not only did an excellent job of entertaining and encouraging the folks at home, but it was also well made--with some wonderful performances. I am not just saying that because I am a huge Humphrey Bogart fan--after all, despite his having top billing, it is really an ensemble film. No, Warner Brothers did a bang-up job of getting excellent character actors, combining them with excellent direction as well as an excellent story. About the only serious negative about the film was the structure of the film itself (not the plot). The film begins with two men talking and the movie is told through flashbacks. This is a common theme in older films and I don't mind it at all,...within limits. But, when the flashback begins to have a flashback and this other flashback diverges into yet another flashback, it just looks like sloppy writing--and this is a real shame as the dialog and plot are very good. So my advice is to still watch the film and try to look past this odd style. If you do, you will be rewarded with an excellent film filled with excellent acting, dialog and a rousing and not too unbelievable series of adventures.By the way, for historians and airplane lovers out there, the film is really a mixed bag. In the beginning of the film, Bogart's bomber changes from what appears to be a B-17 A, B, C or D to a B-17 E or F in mid-flight. While in some planes the differences between versions of a model are usually pretty insignificant, in the B-17 it was such a radical redesign, it really does look like two totally different planes. So in this case, they did a lousy job of paying attention to details. However, late in the film when the ship is attacked by a German patrol plane, the attacking plane really does look like a real FW-200--the standard German plane for such anti-shipping details. This type of plane is rarely, if ever, shown in movies and I liked how someone at Warner Brothers really cared to try to get it right.