Background to Danger *** (1943, George Raft, Brenda Marshall, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre) – Classic Movie Review 3879

Director Raoul Walsh’s 1943 wartime spy thriller stars George Raft and Brenda Marshall, but the even better news is that it co-stars the great screen team of Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre.

Raft stars as undercover American agent Joe Barton who tries to stop wartime Nazi plots in Ankara in politically neutral Turkey. Ankara is realised in an atmospheric Warner Bros studio version in a densely plotted and flavoursome but disappointingly low-tension cloak-and-dagger melodrama that failed to live up to the success of Casablanca (which had co-starred Greenstreet and Lorre and Raft is said to have turned down in Humphrey Bogart’s role of Rick).

However there are many tasty ingredients to be found in this little-known movie. Walsh directs his film of Eric Ambler’s 1937 novel Uncommon Danger (US title: Background to Danger) at a good pace and manages a spectacular car chase, while the luminous bad guys that Greenstreet and Lorre play- Colonel Robinson and Nikolai Zaleshoff – are alone worth the price of the DVD. Colonel Robinson is an evil Nazi, while Nikolai Zaleshoff and his sister Tamara Zaleshoff may or may not be Russian spies. The Germans are planning to leak maps to show the Russians are about to invade Turkey.

Also in the cast are Osa Massen, Turhan Bey, Willard Robertson, Kurt Katch, Pedro de Cordoba, Frank Puglia, Steve Geray, Frank Reicher, Georges Renavent, Paul Porcasi, Otto Reichow and Charles Irwin.

The screenplay is credited to W.R. Burnett, though William Faulkner and Daniel Fuchs  also contribute. Interestingly, the film has a pro-Soviet bias seen in the positive portrayal of Marshall’s Russian spy character.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3879
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