Passage to Marseille (1944) ***

Release date: February 16, 1944

Running time: 109 minutes

Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains, Philip adorn, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, George Tobias, Helmut Dantine and Michele Morgan

Directed by: Michael Curtiz

To refer to this film as patriotic propaganda is to undersell the message it is trying to force upon it’s audience. Warner Brothers was already facing bad blood with the French about previous depictions of penal conditions on Devil’s Island which lead to a two month ban of their films in France. Passage to Marseille seems at times like an answer to that by trying to promote patriotism in France despite the harshness of incarceration on the infamous isle. Even though the film has a real issue with how the story is laid out relying on flashbacks inside of flashbacks it never loses track of that message. We are bombarded with characters who proudly proclaim their willingness to fight for a country that let them down and forgot about them. This is all scored heavily with La Marseillaise and images of Free France.

The story is pretty light here. It boils down to five convicts serving hard labor on Devil’s Island for various crimes. The leader of the group, Jean Matrac, (Humphrey Bogart) was a journalist outspoken against the Munich Pact who was framed for murder to shut him up. The others: Marius (Peter Lorre), Garou (Helmut Dantine), Petit (George Tobias), and Renault (Philip adorn) are serving for other petty crimes. All of the express their hatred of the Nazi’s and their desire to fight for their country. They are recruited by Grandpere (Vladimir Sokoloff), an elderly man who decides to help them escape their imprisonment so they may join the war effort. This escape leads to them adrift on a raft for two weeks before being picked up by the tramp steamer, Ville de Nancy and it doesn’t take long for the men to be identified as escaped convicts.

When word gets back to the steamer that France has surrendered to the Nazis and a collaborationist government has been set up, Captain Malo (Victor Francen) decides not to deliver his cargo to the Germans. Major Duval (Sydney Greenstreet) in turn attempts to stage a coup to seize the ship only to be defeated by the combined efforts of most of the crew as well as substantial support from the five convicts, earning them a degree of trust amongst the loyal crew of the Ville de Nancy.

Most of the story is told in extensive flashbacks. We get these layered upon each other in such a way that a casual viewer may become lost. These flashbacks tell the story of Matrac and his fellow convicts contextualizing where they stand in their devotion to their country. Matrac himself is not as sold on patriotism as the others as he is wrongfully imprisoned leaving behind a wife and child. However when push comes to shove he picks up a weapon and defends his country along with the others. Even the main plot of the story aboard the Ville de Nancy is a flashback, a story being relayed to a journalist by Captain Freycinet (Claude Rains) just prior to an air attack in which Matrac is participating in as an aerial gunner. 

This story could be confusing but is told well enough that those paying attention will have no issues following the chronology. The film does suffer from it a little however as it fails to suspend it’s artificiality and contrivances because of it. History buffs will also be drawn out of it by it’s many liberties taken with events and details. For the non-discerning eye though it is just an oddly paced patriotic propaganda film. It’s also relying heavily on the goodwill of audiences who loved Casablanca two years earlier by featuring most of the cast together again. It never seems to soar though the way Casablanca did and ultimately ends up being a curiosity only ranking as passable entertainment that doesn’t quite hit the mark.