VividSimon Simply Perfect

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Robert J. Maxwell The Casbah is accurately described under the opening credits as a neighborhood of Algiers that was built on a series of marine terraces and stops at the sea. It really was a seedy and fetid maze of dwellings that provided a home for criminals. In the Algerian War fought by the French, it was a hiding place for the nationalist rebels. I conducted a thorough investigation of the area by reading the first paragraph of the Wikipedia entry.The police have been trying to nab the notorious criminal, Pepe le Moko (Charles Boyer). However, he has many friends who warn him when the police are coming, and there is a labyrinth of hidden passageways and tunnels that make it extremely difficult. An investigator comes down from Paris to kick some local butt.He's met by frustrated local cops who explain the situation to him. The most memorable of the policiers is the smiling, philosophical, slightly oily Joseph Calleia. He's irresistible. The head honcho from Paris leads a police squad into the Casbah and Pepe and his friends run them ragged. Of course, if Pepe should ever stroll out of the Casbah, he's yesterday's news. Boyer knows he can't come out, and it fills his heart with melancholy because he yearns to go back to Paris. Ah, Paris -- La Place Blanche, La Gare du Nord, Les Filles de Joie, La Bourdaloue.Enter a wealthy tourist, Hedy Lamarr, who sports a perfectly elliptical face with a vertical axis, and who drips with the jewelry that catches Boyer's eye. Her real name, of course, isn't Hedy Lammar. Nobody is named Hedy Lamarr. Don't kid yourself about that. She was born into a royal Austrian family and named Prinzessen Brynhyldr von Speck und Brodt. Please, it doesn't make her less appealing.Among the denizens of the Casbah we can glimpse Leonid Kinsky. He was one of two of Hollywood's resident comic young Russians, the other being Mischa Auer. Vladimir Sokolov was Hollywood's ancient, mystic Russian -- the only one. He had a busy career.It's an interesting film, not gripping, and a bit stagy, but generally well executed. The musical score is strictly pedestrian but the photography and direction are quite good. There's a spooky scene involving the deliberate murder of the pudgy trembling traitor, Gene Lockhart, done to the overloud tune of a rickety piano. At the opposite end of the scale, a chipper song by Boyer, "C'est La Vie," threatens to turn the romantic drama into a musical comedy. It's painful to watch. The large supporting cast does well by their roles. Boyer is smooth and French, but it's hard to believe at this point in time that the ladies swooned with such abandon over Boyer and his accent. His resonant baritone was imitated by impressionists for years afterward. "Come Wiz Me...." Boyer has a serious problem, though. He has a native girl friend, Sigrid Gurie, who adores him but whom he shoves around and tells to shut up all the time. Well, we all know that Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Pepe should never have left the Casbah to intercept the woman of his dreams at the boat dock, at least not with Sigrid Gurie knowing about it.The ending is a sea of bathos though, in a sense, Boyer does finally escape from the Casbah.

Cristi_Ciopron 'Casbah, a melting pot for all the sins of the world'. This definition of one of Algiers' quarters, given in the movie, could apply to Antioch, Alexandria or Constantinople at the height of their power, the great antique and medieval capitals of the corruption, Molochs of the criminality and excesses.I liked ALGIERS, this short treatise of underworld violence and vices, this endearing and feverish lowbrow exotic fantasy, I have found it to be appealing and exciting and, on its level, well—made.As a treatise of fancy sociology thought of in the most trite clichés, ALGIERS, a fruit of the mellow '30s (made in '38), glamorizes amply, in a heightened tone and unsubtle, unpretentious style of film-making, an exotic place, in a manner common in the era's flicks, exalting or exhaling vast projections of what the Tyr, Sidon, Sodom, Jerusalem, Antioch and Alexandria were thought/ supposed to have been in the legendary past, metropolis of pleasure, vice and corruption, the rule of the violence and base passions—part of those blessed ('38—well, on the brink of the war …) times' dream of adventure, here in the popular, lowbrow version; with ALGIERS we take a step into Casbah, the labyrinthine quarter where Pépé rules. ALGIERS is appealing kitsch, it doesn't address the heart, but the taste for an exciting show; labeled as the American remake of a French movie, it boasts a very chic French leading man, the famous and understandably respected Boyer (still _watchable, as a soft—spoken oldster, in a '60s melodrama like BAREFOOT IN THE PARK), here as a tough guy—Pépé, a mastermind of the underworld.As Pépé, Boyer replaces Gabin; but he reminds of Bogart.ALGIERS is a work of popular glamorization and almanac wisdom; Casbah is glamorized, Pépé is glamorized. There are things to be admired in this flick. It has gusto and energy. I liked the movie's score. The cinematography might surprise by its quality and atmosphere.One thing in this movie is subtle, though—Boyer's persona, Boyer does a venomous, a bit charming and insidious Pépé; he looks like the upgraded, boosted and cleaner version of Bogart. Or was it Bogart who looked like a lousy, dirty Boyer?

richard-1787 I saw Algiers just a few days after its French original, Pepe le Moko, which doesn't do Algiers a lot of favors. So, before writing this review, I read the 20+ ones already posted here, mostly from viewers who had not seen Pepe le Moko first, to see how they reacted to Algiers without knowing the French original. Most of them liked it a lot.While I wouldn't go that far - despite a few of the comments, I found this movie not even close to Casablanca - I did find it enjoyable for certain things, if not for others.While I like Charles Boyer in certain movies (Gaslight, primarily), in this film he is radically inferior to his French predecessor, Jean Gabin. Gabin is very believable as a thief and member of the underworld; it is hard to imagine Boyer surviving there 10 minutes. Gabin could be rough and charming; Boyer is "suave", but there is no dark underside to it.Hedy Lamarr is indeed beautiful, and sometimes gets to do some acting here. She never overacts (as Boyer and some of the others do), so she is always fun to watch.The best acting, however, is in the character roles, some of which are in no way inferior to the original. Gene Lockart's death screen is well acted and magnificently staged; it is one of the best moments in the movie. Joseph Calleia is very good as the police agent throughout.Still, the best thing in this movie, for me, was the lighting and camera work. Often atmospheric, some of the shots are very strikingly composed. The next time I watch this movie, it would be tempting to do so with the sound off for most of it - though not when Vincent Scotto's music is playing. It is haunting and very evocative; another of the best features of the film.My only complaint about this movie is the end, which some previous reviewers liked. (Here comes the spoiler.) In the original, Jean Gabin commits suicide when he realizes he can't have Gaby; it is a chilling scene very well done. In the American remake Boyer gets shot while running to the ship; it makes him much more of a victim without control of his destiny, and in that sense was a real aggravation after having seen how it "could have been done." Other changes in the movie are interesting examples of cultural differences: in the French original, Gaby is the well-paid mistress of the wealthy overweight Frenchman; there is no question of marriage between them. In the American remake, they are engaged, and while there is no suggestion either loves the other, the relationship would have been seen as less immoral. In the same sense, the low-life is the French Casbah is much more clearly low: prostitution, etc. That is all glossed over in the American remake.So, a movie worth watching, especially for the lighting, the camera work, and some of the direction, as well as the acting of some of the subordinates. Watch this movie first, and then Pepe le Moko, and you will enjoy it more.

steph92010 Algiers is not a classic, it is a perversion of the wonderful original Pepe le Moko, directed by Duvivier and starring a much more attractive and charming Pepe, Jean Gabin. If you want to fully experience the Casbah and the characters in Algiers, I recommend you don't even watch this movie and see Pepe le Moko instead, for it is much more elaborate, more beautifully filmed, the lines are not clichéd and the characters adhere much more to reality. Furthermore, the ending is so dramatic and key to Pepe's character that you'll find the Algiers version intolerable. Although Algiers does an almost excellent job mimicking each scene, the acting falls short as does the credibility of the characters. Plus, the wardrobe is truly breath-taking in all scenes, particularly Pepe's in the last scene and Gaby's (at all times) but also when she's on the boat. Frankly, Algiers is cheap as far as imitations go.