Stars: Charles Boyer, Sigrid Gurie, Hedy lamarr, Joseph Calleia, Alan Hale, Gene Lockhart
Director: John Cromwell
Oscar History: 4 nominations (Best Actor-Charles Boyer, Best Supporting Actor-Gene Lockhart, Art Direction, Cinematography)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars
Each month, as part of our 2019 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress of Hollywood's Golden Age. This month, our focus is on Hedy Lamarr-click here to learn more about Ms. Lamarr (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.
Algiers was Hedy Lamarr's first American film. She had come over from Europe, where she had been married to Fritz Mandl, an Austrian arms manufacturer who worked with both Mussolini & Hitler in the lead-up to World War II, and was an abusive, controlling husband to Lamarr. Though accounts vary on exactly how she fled him, she eventually made it to London, where she met Louis B. Mayer who signed her to a contract and began to bill her as "the most beautiful woman in the world"
(Spoilers Ahead) Algiers is the story of Pepe le Moko (Boyer, and yes, this would eventually be the inspiration for the cartoon character Pepe Le Pew), a crime boss living in the Casbah in Algiers. The film is largely focused on Pepe's relationships with both the law (whom he consistently alludes), as well as the residents of the Casbah, all of whom are somewhat intrigued by him, even if they don't seem to have universal respect for him. He is torn between his long-time mistress Ines (Gurie) and his new love Gaby (Lamarr), who is engaged to a wealthy man and is currently on a vacation in Algiers when she meets and falls in love with Pepe. All-the-time, Regis (Lockhart), someone who works for Pepe but doesn't feel he gets the respect that he deserves, betrays him, selling him out to the police, and in the process he is killed for his betrayal. Pepe eventually is brought out in the open when someone lies to Gaby about Pepe dying, and so she leaves the Casbah, heartbroken. The final moments of the film are Pepe calling out for Gaby, wanting her to know that he's still alive, and being shot by an overzealous police officer in the process (he's already been taken into custody by the Inspector, played by Calleia).
The film won four Oscar nominations, including a Best Actor citation for Boyer. If you've read this blog for a while, you'll know that Boyer is one of my least favorite stars of classic Hollywood, his hammy approach never really giving me much appeal, and he's absurd as a crook. There's a reason they created a cartoon character out of this performance-it's indulgent, the sort of thing that might play romantically in 1938, but it's over-the-top just a few years later. It's worth noting that the film inspired Casablanca to some degree, and you see that (particularly with the set design, which is the movie's best feature), but it's also a testament to what a better actor Humphrey Bogart is than Boyer, as Bogart is able to imbue an actual soul into his character, rather than giving clunky line readings.
Where Algiers is at its most interesting is when they simply focus on life in a closed city, focusing on the minutia of the residents, all of whom are biding their own time until something like Pepe's accidental shooting happens to them. The movie is kind of weird when it does this (Calleia's Inspector is a bad performance but also kind of an awesomely bad performance...is he secretly in love with Pepe too?), but it's distinctive and keeps you intrigued long enough to get around Boyer. The movie's other acting nomination was for Gene Lockhart, who gets a meaty part as the man who betrays Pepe, but he's two-dimensional and not remotely the best supporting character in the lot, so I'm surprised they even noticed him for this honor.
As for Lamarr, it's clear that this is her first film in a language that is not her own. She's gorgeous, almost ridiculously so (apparently when the film initially opened, people audibly gasped the first time she was onscreen), but there's not enough fire in her to sell Gaby as anything other than a lost trophy wife, trying to figure out what to do with herself as she's about to give in to a loveless marriage. Gurie is considerably better as her romantic rival, someone who is obsessed with Pepe, to the point where she'd rather him die than leave her, and she's ultimately the one who betrays him, but Lamarr doesn't have the natural spark that she brought to Ecstasy. Hopefully as she becomes more acclimated to Hollywood in our remaining two weeks we'll see that spark return.
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