Sirocco (1951)

Director:

Curtis Bernhardt

Writers:

A.I. Bezzerides (writer)
Hans Jacoby (writer)

Release Date:

13 June 1951 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Action

Tagline:

BEYOND CASABLANCA . . . Fate, in a Low-cut Gown, Lies in Wait for Bogart!

Plot:

A cynical American expatriate gets involved in smuggling and gun-running for the rebels during the 1925 Syrian insurgency against French occupation.

Plot Keywords:

Jewelry | Warehouse | Damascus | 1925 | Black Market

Cast

Humphrey Bogart	...	Harry Smith
Märta Torén	...	Violette
Lee J. Cobb	...	Col. Feroud
Everett Sloane	...	Gen. LaSalle
Gerald Mohr	...	Major Jean Leon
Zero Mostel	...	Balukjiaan
Nick Dennis	...	Nasir Aboud
Onslow Stevens	...	Emir Hassan
Ludwig Donath	...	Flophouse proprietor
David Bond	...	Achmet
Vincent Renno	...	Arthur

Runtime:

98 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Arabic

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Norway:16 | Australia:PG | Finland:S | Sweden:15 | USA:Approved (PCA #15117)

Company:

Santana Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

According to actor Jamie Farr, the movie debuted on Saturday night at the Rivoli in his home town of Toledo. Most of Toledo's Arab-American community turned out to see it. As a scene where Bogart walks though a crowded bazaar begins to fade, an Arab voice is heard shouting, "Ya hallah deen bayak!" which caused most of the audience to collapse in laughter. The non-Arabs in the house did not understand why everyone else was laughing until the line was translated for them: "Goddamn your father!"

Goofs:

Continuity: Toward the end of the film, Col. Feroud walks around with Maj. Leon. Then they stop for a while and Leon takes the cigarette from his mouth with his left hand. In the next shot, he takes the cigarette from mouth again, this time with his right hand.

Quotes:

Nasir Aboud: [hearing gunfire] It's a French gun.
Harry Smith: What do you care whose gun it is as long as it isn't aimed at you?

"How can anyone so ugly be so handsome?"

(Marta Toren to Bogie)....what a great line! I'm surprised it hasn't gone down in the lexicon of great movie quips...and it captures perfectly the paradoxical mystery of Bogie's eternal charm, as well as the mystery of how an essentially mediocre film can be redeemed by its own dry, sardonic charm (due largely to help from fine supporting players as much as from Bogie), some great B/W photography, and a persistently downbeat refusal to push any sort of patriotic agenda.(adding greatly to that charm quotient.) The postwar noir influence is in fine fettle here. So Bogie doesn't exactly have a great motivation for his final decision? He just changed his mind, that's all. Take it or leave it. "I've taken long chances before. Okay." What could be better than that? It's the way people act every day. Every good critical eye without a mote in it knows that this film is safely and securely within the universe of the best product Hollywood ever put out, a great, mordant, counterweight universe to the unwatchable sap they themselves were producing right alongside it. "Sirocco" is not even really that minor a star in that universe. Good, good, good.