The Luso World Cinema Blogathon – Across the Pacific (1942)

This is the third of 4 reviews celebrating Portuguese heritage in Film for The Luso World Cinema Blogathon being hosted by Beth of Spellbound By Movies and Letícia Magalhães of Crítica Retrô.

Thanks for letting me partake!

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“Don’t be an innocent bystander; they always get hurt.” – Rick Leland

Number of Times Seen – 1 (29 Oct 2019)

Brief Synopsis – A disgraced former army officer seeks a ride on a tanker via the Panama Canal in order to get to the Pacific and find new work yet along the way he meets some very interesting traveling companions who are not who they truly seem to be.

My Take on it – This is a film that I came across by accident and was immediately drawn in to this very engaging and mysterious story.

Director John Huston does an amazing job creating a war movie that is brewing with the atmosphere of a country about to join the World War that was already waging.

The fact that they constantly remind us how close these events are to the events of the attack on Pearl Harbor also helps raise the level of suspense because they keep sowing us the date over and over as the story gets more and more tense.

Humphrey Bogart is superb in the lead role and does a wonderful job with this role.

He has amazing chemistry with his co-stars and both Mary Astor and Sydney Greenstreet are able to keep their characters feeling quite realistic throughout.

Each of the characters have a mysterious aura around them which allows for the story to remain captivating throughout because they all have a shadow of doubt on their true motives.

The dialogue is written really well and adds so much suspense to things because of the double talk between the characters which enhances the thrilling aspects of the story.

The plot is filled with lots of great twists and turns that help make this so unpredictable as the story gets deeper and deeper along the way.

Now that I know how this film plays out, I’m even more interested in seeing it again with even fresher eye.

Bottom Line – Excellent war movie that does a great job keeping the level of suspense and thrills quite high throughout. Bogart is superb in the lead and plays this kind of character quite well. His chemistry with his co stars is great and allows for all the characters to seem realistic in all that they do even though the story manages to cast a shadow of doubt on all of them. The fact that this film takes place not long before Pearl Harbor is mentioned numerous times and adds even more to the suspense of the story as thing slowly begin to unfold along the way. The dialogue is amazing to listen to since the story is filled with lots of twists and turns that help to constantly change the direction of things as we get deeper and deeper into the story itself. Highly Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Director Vincent Sherman met with John Huston just before Huston left the project to join the Army Signal Corps and shoot documentaries for the war effort. The two directors conferred just before they were about to shoot the scene in which Leland is trapped in the movie theatre and three assassins are trying to kill him. “How does he get out?” Sherman asked. Huston replied, “That’s your problem! I’m off to the war!”(From IMDB)

Rating – Oscar Worthy (9/10)