Tue 14 Sep 2010
Movie Review: BACKGROUND TO DANGER (1943).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Suspense & espionage films[11] Comments
BACKGROUND TO DANGER. Warner Brothers, 1943. George Raft, Brenda Marshall, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Osa Massen, Turhan Bey. Screenplay by W. R. Burnett, based on the novel by Eric Ambler (1937). Director: Raoul Walsh.
I think everyone who watches this movie today wonders who they might have cast in place of George Raft in the leading role. I also think that everyone who watches old movies like this one today wonders how it was that stony-faced George Raft was ever considered a movie star. He’s actually pretty good in this one, but it’s still a mediocre movie.
Would it still have been mediocre if Humphrey Bogart (say) had played Raft’s part? Maybe. That and a complete rewrite, that would have helped. As it is, I really think they missed the point of the book.
Raft plays a guy selling heavy machinery in the Middle East who meets a girl on a train who gives him an envelope filled with stock securities (she says) across the Syrian-Turkish border. Turns out that the contents are photos of maps indicating (falsely) Russia’s plan to invade Turkey.
Turns out that the Nazis are behind the scheme, and that Sidney Greenstreet is the man who thought it up as a way to drive Turkey away from Russia and into occupation by Germany. Turns out that Peter Lorre and Brenda Marshall are brother and sister (they say) and agents of Russia (again so they say), and it turns out that George Raft’s character is the guy right in the middle of everything.
Who is who and on which side they are is part of the mystery for a while, but this film is filled far more with talk than it is with action. Greenstreet has to explain his plan several times over, for example, just to make sure (one is allowed to assume) that the audience knows at least what his role is.
No film with both Greenstreet and Peter Lorre in it is completely bad. In fact, Peter Lorre is the one bright spot in the film, both broodingly mysterious and amusing, and sometimes in the very same scene. Usually the leading female is the bright light for me, but Brenda Marshall is not given very much to do. Too bad.
They also changed the story. I can’t say that I remember the details of the book, which I last read in the mid-50s, but of course the book was pre-war and the movie takes place while the was is going on. A small but significant change in perspective.
A bigger change, as I remember it, is that the hero in the book is an innocent who does his best, but when it comes to international politics, he’s in over his head. George Raft’s character – well I won’t tell you a whole lot more. He’s a tough guy who can take what’s dished out to him, but as I say, they really rewrote the part as far as he’s concerned.
And not for the better.
[UPDATE] 09-17-10. Mike Grost does an in depth critical analysis of this film on his website, in a page in which he discusses many of director Raoul Walsh’s films — an excellent piece of work!
September 15th, 2010 at 12:55 am
It’s amazing how much better Warner’s did with MASK OF DIMITRIOS with Lorre and Greensteet and a top notch screenplay by Frank Gruber directed by Jean Negulesco. I tend to blame wartime zeal on this more than Raft or even Burnett’s screenplay. I’m not sure they could have done Ambler’s book at that point since it was less about the enemy that an innocent man in over his head. The timing was just off. In Ambler’s book both sides are ruthless, and no one is innocent save the hero. I don’t think wartime audiences wanted that.
If you can divorce this from Ambler’s novel (and to be fair it is the least of his early novels after EPITAPH FOR A SPY and that first one he kept out of print for so long), it’s a solid little spy film of the era lifted by the presence of Lorre and Greenstreet. It just isn’t Eric Ambler, or only here and there.
This one is unique in that three of Ambler’s rare series characters appear in it — Colonel Haki of the Turkish secret police (also in A COFFIN FOR DIMITRIOS and JOURNEY INTO FEAR) and the Zalesoff’s, the brother and sister Russian spies (also in CAUSE FOR ALARM). Arthur Abdel Simpson shows up in two books (THE LIGHT OF DAY and DIRTY STORY) and Charles Latimer from COFFIN appears years later in THE INTERCOM CONSPIRACY (ironic two of Ambler’s series characters were played on screen by Peter Lorre).
I like Raft a little better than you. Granted he couldn’t act, but he does have some screen charisma, and in his best roles — SCARFACE, THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT, MANPOWER, INVISIBLE STRIPES, EACH DAWN I DIE, NOCTURNE, HOUSE ACROSS THE BAY — he’s not bad. To paraphrase Peter O’Toole in MY FAVORITE YEAR, damn it, he’s a movie star, not an actor.
The bit about what this might have been with Bogie (and even Bogie would have had a time overcoming Brenda Marshall’s Russian accent) is of course a perfect lead in to the famous story that Raft had been offered a series of films at Warner’s which he turned down, the last one HIGH SIERRA. Bogart is supposed to have remarked that if Raft turned down one more film he would become a star. The next film Raft refused was THE MALTESE FALCON.
You have to hope that one is true.
September 15th, 2010 at 7:05 am
Steve, I agree with you about Raft. Every time I see him – and yes, sometimes he was fine – I wonder…how?
September 15th, 2010 at 10:23 am
The camera liked George Raft. It’s a mystery that is hard to explain, but the camera finds something in some people that may not be seen in person.
William Wellman always told the story of Gary Cooper (who was a good actor, maybe even a great actor in his own way) in WINGS. Coop had a five minute role in the film — a walk on really, and while filming the scene Wellman thought it was the worst performance he had ever seen. That night watching the rushes he found you couldn’t take your eyes off of Cooper.
Raft is one of those people the camera loved. He couldn’t act, but it didn’t really matter. All he had to do was hit his marks and read his lines, the camera loved him. Much better actors didn’t do as well simply because the camera didn’t love them.
You can’t discount screen presence, and when it was combined with some talent it made super stars.
September 15th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Raft needed a good director and a script tailored to his limitations, but within those limitations, he was quite effective. The big problem with BACKGROUND is that Greenstreet & Lorre are in it but never say a word to each other. For two actors who played off each other so well, this is high crime.
September 15th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
David
You’re right. Sometimes all an actor has to do is to act like a movie star, and he (or she) is one, whether or not he (or she) can act at all. George Raft fits the category to a T, and I’m sure everyone can think of others.
Dan
That’s a good point. Lorre shares most of his onscreen time with George Raft, often in a semi-mocking way that I can’t quite describe in words, but it’s there.
Sidney Greenstreet is nearly wasted, with no one to play off, and forced to repeat his nefarious plans over and over again with anyone who comes within earshot — but never Peter Lorre.
September 16th, 2010 at 12:42 am
Loved how Billy Wilder had Raft spoof himself in SOME LIKE IT HOT. Raft (Spats Columbo) scolds a young hood for flipping a coin, saying “Where ya’d learn that cheap gimmick?”
September 16th, 2010 at 3:12 am
Catch Raft as the American gangster hired by Commies to kiddnap a Canadian scientist in A BULLET FOR JOEY, which has him in his familiar pork pie hat, a black suit, and a striped turtle neck … Edward G. Robinson is a Mountie (no, we don’t get to see him in the uniform). It’s one of those Red baiting films of the fifties that Raft and Robinson probably felt it was unsafe to turn down, and both obviously regretted being in.
However, a little later Raft was very good with Guy Madison in JET OVER THE ATLANTIC, a variation on ZERO HOUR (the one where the pilot and co-pilot are ill and a passenger has to fly the plane — the one sent up in the AIRPLANE films). Raft is an FBI agent in Europe to bring Madison back to the States and on the flight back … Good little suspense film with solid performance by Raft and Madison. And he’s not bad as Lt. Trant in BLACK WIDOW based on the Q. Patrick book with Van Heflin as Peter Durrell and Gene Tierney as Iris. Not a bad little film over all with Ginger Rogers and Reginald Gardiner both good in it too. A well done theatrical mystery if a little too slick for its own good.
And maybe it’s just me, but I like JOHNNY ALLEGRO with Raft, Nina Foch, and George MacReady which turns into a variation on “The Most Dangerous Game.”
Supposedly Raft always counted his lines, and if there were too many of them he turned the part down.
September 16th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
Just back from YouTube, where I watched George Raft’s greatest performance – The Alka-Seltzer Prison Riot (1969), with Robert Strauss and Mike Mazurki.
Don’t miss it if you can!
September 16th, 2010 at 5:22 pm
Terrific! I have to admit I never saw this one when it came out.
Here’s a direct link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRh2IDFmbgU
— Steve
September 17th, 2010 at 6:29 am
I should also mention another claim to immortality for the movie BACKGROUND TO DANGER: in ON THE ROAD Jack Kerouac spends a memorable chapter crashing at an old grind-house watching this over & over again on a double-bill with an Eddie Dean western.
September 17th, 2010 at 11:44 am
Dan
You’re right. I need my memory jogged like more and more all the time.
Anyone who’s reading this should go right now and read (or re-read) Dan’s review of ON THE ROAD here on this blog, as well as the followup comments.
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=1332#comments
What a great tie-in connection!