Sirocco

This is a most unusual movie for its time, and it is fascinating to read the comments on it here on the IMDb. Many viewers are apparently undecided what to make of Sirocco as it does not fit any of the known stereotypes. This is neither Algiers (1938) nor Casablanca (1942), there is no romance, you don't find anything exotic about the place in question (Damascus, Syria) and no great friendships are about to develop. It is basically a movie about people who are confronted with a drab and hopeless situation (messagewise I would compare it with The Sand Pebbles (1966)). It painfully reminds todays viewers of the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq (well, the Jasmine salesman bolts off before his handgranades go off in the cafe, the suicide bomber had not been invented yet). Western powers (they have a mandate from the League of Nations) are pitted against so called "patriots" (they have no mandate at all) in a bloody battle without a discernible cause. The Bogart character is an opportunist arms dealer and a coward to boot. At one time he really hits rock bottom in the Catacombs underneath the city as he tries to hide in his tattered Bogey-raincoat - one of the many great visual moments in this beautifully photographed nightmare of a movie with its superb set design. The main message of Sirocco is a depressing one: If things turn bad, the efforts of single individuals are of negligible effect. We have a disillusioned French officer (Lee J. Cobb who I have never seen better). He wants to prevent a planned execution of civilians as a retaliatory act after an ambush, not out of idealistic motives or with any hope but just because he is sick of all the killing. Like all the other characters he gets bogged down by the circumstances and in the end departs on a meeting with the "patriots" with the Bogart character's help. Everyone agrees that this action is meant to be a suicide. The officer even gets out of his uniform which heretofore had the function of a corset. Great sets and scenes abound here. Damascus is a place of eternal night - and we never get out of the place into the open. The Roman Catacombs seem to be inspired by Giovanni Piranesi's "carceri" drawings. There is a great scene in which the Bogart character buys a belly dancer's finger cymbals. Another scene begins with the focus on a visibly tender and juicy steak which the Bogart character starts cutting into. "He brings his own food", the waiter explains to other patrons who would like the same. What a better way to depict a war profiteer? As the lines above suggest, the storyline of Sirocco is pretty sprawling and the film is more of a situation than a story. That makes it only more realistic and instructive. Our time is right for anti-war movies of this kind. In can recommend it.

source: Sirocco

We know Bogart liked to keep working. The movies he made in the late Forties through the mid Fifties, however, sometimes give "work" a bad name. He veered effortlessly between fine movies that to this day continue to challenge, satisfy or do both and movies that are nothing more than nearly forgotten commercial hackwork. He knew what he was turning out; he called Sirocco a stinker. What an odd and undiscriminating selection process he and his agent must have had. In 1950 he makes Chain Lightening but then makes In a Lonely Place. In 1951 it's Sirocco and then The African Queen. In 1953 it's Battle Circle and then Beat the Devil (maybe a confusing failure, but not hackwork). With Sirocco Bogart gives us Harry Smith, a gunrunner who finds himself in Damascus. The year is 1925. The French run things. A lot of Syrians don't like that at all. They're called "rebels." Harry? He doesn't care one way or another as long as he's paid. Harry is tired, sour, cynical and a skeptic. He doesn't believe in anything except money and the value of his own hide. He's Bogart. Harry quickly finds himself involved with a martinet of a French general named LaSalle (Everett Sloane) who thinks shooting five Syrians for every dead French soldier will be educational for everyone; a sympathetic French colonel named Feroud (Lee J. Cobb) who thinks he can avoid bloodshed if he can just sit down and talk things over with the rebel leaders, especially Emir Hassan (Onslow Stevens); and Feroud's mistress, a cool drink of water named Violette (Marta Toren), a beautiful woman who seems to be aroused more by the prospect of shopping than the prospect of making love. In other words, a courtesan to scriptwriters, a sophisticated prostitute to the more realistic; something akin to a wealthy CEO's trophy wife. Harry meets Violette, wants her and comes close to falling for her. This sets up some tension between himself and Colonel Feroud. All the while Harry is trying to extricate himself from an arms deal gone very, very wrong. By the end of the movie no one has gained much of anything, although it appears Violette will have the time to do more shopping. At one point in Sirocco Violette says to Harry Smith, "What a man! You're so ugly! Yes, you are! How can a man so ugly be so handsome?" Ugly? Quasimodo, that's ugly. Bogart may not have been handsome, but he had style, a unique screen personality and the good fortune to star in three -- count 'em, three -- iconic career-making movies in less than two years. High Sierra, The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca carved Bogart's screen persona so deeply in granite that even hackwork like Sirocco scarcely makes a chip. When we see Harry we're really seeing Roy, Sam and Rick. There's no reason to watch this movie unless you're fond of Bogart and have an hour and a half to waste. But if you watch, remember Everett Sloane. He was a fine, fine actor who seldom found memorable parts in Hollywood. He was a member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theater and came to Hollywood with Welles. He wound up in the Fifties doing a ton of television shows. He killed himself in 1965 when he was 55. My best memories of Sloane include Mr. Bernstein in Citizen Kane (1941); Arthur Bannister in The Lady from Shanghai (1947); Mario Belli in Prince of Foxes (1949); Dr. Eugene Brock in The Men (1950); and, powerfully, Walter Ramsey in Patterns (1956).

A lot of expensive talent went into Sirocco; alas, hardly a glimmer of it shows. It's a guns-and-dried-apricots intrigue drama set in Syria during the 1925 Druze uprising against the French protectorate. But A.I. Bezzerides sought in vain for a unifying focus for his screenplay, which, in consequence, Curtis Bernhardt directed slackly and torpidly. The usually resourceful director of photography Burnett Guffey let his camera linger in one clammy catacomb too many, and George Anthiel's score, with its ophidian oboes, would better suit an asiatic confection like Curse of the Cobra Woman than a story set in the (relatively) modern middle east, with issues that still resonate today. Then there's the cast. Humphrey Bogart was starting to look haggard in this umpteenth retreat of his patented persona, the cynical loner in an exotic locale. And while it's good to see Everett Sloane outside an Orson Welles vehicle, his small part is disposable. Even the obligatory love triangle -- shades of Casablanca -- seems of less urgency to its principals (Bogart, Marta Toren, Lee J. Cobb) than, if possible, to the audience. It all ends on a sour dissonance. Only its title remains apt: Sirocco is a gust of stale hot air.

At the time this film was made, I am unsure exactly what American popular opinion was to this film or the occupation of Syria. On one hand, the French were imperialists and had no right to occupy Syria (as well as about 1/5 of the planet). On the other, the Syrian revolutionaries were at times mindless killers--much like parts of the Muslim world today. Because of this, the usual "good guy vs. bad guy" focus of most Hollywood films is gone, and to top if off, Humphrey Bogart plays a most amoral and unsympathetic leading man--making it a hard film to connect to. Interestingly enough, in light of recent problems in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East, this movie is once again a rather timely film. Lee J. Cobb plays, of all things, a French officer in occupied Syria in 1925. The country is rife with civil war and his commander is inclined to match terror with even greater terror. Cobb, on the other hand, is rather reasonable and wants to broker a negotiated peace--and sadly, he seems to be the only one in the film thinking this way. In so many ways, the star of this film was Cobb--as he was in more scenes and played a much more interesting character than Bogart. His acting was good, but he hardly seemed French--with no accent whatsoever. As for Bogart, the film is an obvious attempt to cash in on the success of CASABLANCA--with many similarities to the original. The setting looks an awful lot alike and the characters seem very similar as well. However, unlike "Rick" from CASABLANCA, down deep, he really is amoral and stands for nothing in SIROCCO. Plus, he just looks sad and old--with very little energy. As a result, caring for him is quite a chore. It's even worse for Bogie's love interest, Märta Torén. Not only was she amoral, but she was just plain nasty and selfish throughout the film--and yet, inexplicably, two men wanted her throughout the film! No lady is THAT beautiful! So overall, this is one of Bogart's poorer efforts of the latter portion of his career--due to a lackluster performance, a derivative script as well as characters (aside from Cobb) you could care less whether they lived or died.

There's an interesting scene with Lee J. Cobb intimidating a grovelling Zero Mostel. In real life, Cobb succumbed to pressure from the House UnAmerican Activities Commission and named others in the entertainment industry who had "communist" affiliations. Mostel refused to give any information about anyone else, was blacklisted and was unable to work in the entertainment industry for almost a decade. Bogie's character initially acts only in his own self-interest, but subsequently does "the right thing" despite personal risk. In real life, Bogie was part of a group formed to oppose the HUAC, a group which quickly fell apart in disarray when the HUAC started to push back. Bogie started out doing "the right thing" but when personal risk loomed, quickly acted to protect his self-interest.

Bogie's role was not really unsympathetic unless you happen to be a Francophile. This can be looked at as a prequel to Casablanca. Harry is very much like a young Rick would have been in 1925. Problem is, Bogie is 10 years older and is basically playing Rick as he was in the 20's. The woman is,though, one of the most unsympathetic creatures ever in films. High maintenance, manipulative, out for everything she can get wherever she can get it. Damn sexy too. Not by any means a great picture but if you like Bogie and you like older films, it is worth a summer night.

Not a great flick, but interesting to see that conflicts between foreign occupiers and arab locals has been going on for a long time, with similar results. Its a recurring theme in Arabia - foreign armies come in hoping to pacify the locals, only to fall into a bloody pattern of terrorism and retribution. The amazing thing is that its been going on for so long and in so many places. It's an insight on today's middle-east events. And like so many middle-east conflicts, in this movie you are left being not very sympathetic to either side. Yes, its the Syrian's home, but their tactics are sickening. The French come off no better as the aggressors and oppressors. The third parties, such as Bogart's character, are just vultures feeding off the tragedy. Good one to watch if you're thinking of invading an Arab nation.

In a way Bogart's greatest performances have left Sirocco "priced out of the market." I won't argue that it's on the same level as Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, or Key Largo, but it is a surprisingly nuanced picture that gets unfairly criticized for not living up to some of the greatest films Hollywood ever produced. Bogie is Bogie, tough-talking and trenchcoat-wearing as usual. He plays Harry Smith, a man who, ordinarily, doesn't take sides, but this time, see... there's a dame! That sounds a little dismissive, it's not meant to be. Nobody's ever played a "shades of gray" character quite like Bogart, in my opinion he could have done it a dozen *more* times. Swedish actress Märta Torén (pegged as 'The Next Ingrid Bergman') is the dame. She really seems almost as out-of-place in the picture as she would have been in war-torn Damascus. Lee J. Cobb, playing the French commander Col. Feroud, chews the scenery a little but overall he gives a good portrayal of a man fighting for a cause he no longer believes in. I'm a fan of both Zero Mostel (the original Max Bialystock) and Nick Dennis (the exuberant Greek mechanic from 'Kiss Me Deadly') and they both have good if small roles here. I was impressed by the way Sirocco refused to overtly side with either the French or the Syrians. Neither does the film present Smith as anything but what he is, an opportunist. In fact, for me, it his teetering on the brink of whether to take sides or stay neutral (and thus be true to his own self-serving moral code) that provides the film's best drama.

There's a general rule to follow about Bogart films: if he's wearing a bow tie, its going to be a disappointment. "Sirocco" is no exception. Even Bogart himself called this film "a mess". He wasn't wrong. There's a lot of pieces here that sound great--Bogart as Harry Smih, an arms merchant in Damascus--Everett Sloan as the French commandant--Lee J. Cobb as the French officer who's trying to bring peace while losing his woman to Bogart--catacombs, mysterious events--but it never comes together. The script is just a confusion of parts and after watching it again, Bogart seems to be playing second fiddle to Lee J. Cobb. Never heard of Marta Toren? There's a reason. She may sound like Bergman, but she does not have any of Bergman's charm, talent or magnetism. She actually gets a bit grating at times. As for the direction, I can only say this director also directed "Conflict" another third rate Bogart film. There is no romance, no heart to what happens to Harry Smith at the end of this either. If at least he would have had a meaningful exit, this film might have been worth watching. But instead, it fulfills the bow tie rule quite nicely and is not recommended for anyone but the most hard-core Bogart fans who have to watch everything he's in...(sigh)...like me.