Across the Pacific **** (1942, Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet) – Classic Movie Review 6453

The iconic great stars from The Maltese Falcon (1941) – Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor and Sydney Greenstreet – join up again with their director John Huston for this entertaining but more routine 1942 Second World War spy movie.

Bogart plays a secret agent called Rick Leland, flirting with wisecracking Alberta Marlow (Astor), fighting silky Doctor H.F.G. Lorenz (Greenstreet) aboard a Japanese freighter ship bound for the Orient in late 1941, and finally ousting the Japanese from Panama single handed.

The performances are impeccable and superlative. Richard Macaulay’s screenplay, based on Robert Carson’s serial Aloha Means Goodbye, has the right salty dialogue and quirky humour. Huston handles it with his accustomed verve.

When Huston was called up to wartime duty, Vincent Sherman completed the film, adding the patriotic flag-waving finale to boost morale.

It is shot in black and white by Arthur Edeson, produced by Hal B Wallis and scored by Adolph Deutsch.

Also in the cast are Victor Sen Yung, Charles Halton, Monte Blue, Richard Loo, Chester Gan, Kam Tong, Keye Luke, Frank Wilcox, Paul Stanton, Lester Matthews and John Hamilton.

The film’s action is on a Japanese freighter named the Genoa Maru, the name of a real Japanese cargo ship torpedoed and sunk by the USS Finback on 11 June 1943.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 6453

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