ACROSS THE PACIFIC (1942) A Film Review Copyright Dragan Antulov 2000
Thanks to the unwritten dogmas of "political correctness" Hollywood moviemakers these days are supposed to avoid ethnic or racial stereotypes in their films. We might argue whether Hollywood puts considerable effort in this, or whether overzealous implementation of those rules affects the quality of recent films, but most of the people would agree that Hollywood made significant progress, at least compared with previous decades. Reputation of some older Hollywood films is often tarnished (or controversial, at best) because of the negative portrayals of certain ethnic and racial groups. This is especially the case with films made during WW2, notably those that deal with Japanese. One of such examples is ACROSS THE PACIFIC, 1942 spy thriller directed by great John Huston. Additional reason why this film often gets overlooked is because Huston used cast and crew of THE MALTESE FALCON, and many of the film scholars see ACROSS THE PACIFIC as nothing more than much inferior and rather insignificant follow-up to Huston's true masterpiece.
The plot, based on the screenplay by Richard Macaulay, starts on November 17th 1941, few weeks before American entry in WW2. Rick Leland (played by Humphrey Bogart) is U.S. army officer who had been dishonourably discharged from service for embezzling regimental funds. Since soldiering happens to be his life, he travels to Halifax in order to offer his services to Canadians, but his bad reputation precedes him. Out of desperation, he decides to join Chang Kai-Shek's army and, in order to travel across the Pacific, he boards Japanese freighter "Genoa Maru". Charming Canadian girl Alberta Marlow (played by Mary Astor) boards same vessel and Leland soon falls in love with her. Their shipboard romance is shadowed by the presence of elegant, but nevertheless sinister Doctor Lorenz (played by Sydney Greenstreet), university professor who used to live in Far East for 30 years and who doesn't hide his strong pro-Japanese feelings. Lorenz is aware of Leland's bitterness towards US government and wants to use it in order to recruit ex-soldier for some covert activities in Panama.
ACROSS THE PACIFIC represents craftsmanship of Hollywood Golden Era at its best - plot is a rather interesting combination of international spy intrigue, melodrama and humour. Cast of MALTESE FALCON is giving another great performance - Bogart is quite believable as disgraced officer and has incredibly good chemistry with Mary Astor, this time playing somewhat simpler, but definitely more charming character than in previous film. Greenstreet is very impressive as villain, albeit not very different from characters he had played in many similar films. Dialogue has a lot of great lines, including some not so subtle Freudian references (especially when characters compare size of their guns). However, the ending of the film is very weak - interesting plot is drowned in cheap melodrama and not very believable method of providing obligatory Happy End. Perhaps Huston is not to be blamed for this, since he left the shooting in order to go to war and left directing to Vincent Sherman who was not up to the task.
Depiction of Japanese characters, although questionable for our standards, may be useful for those who want to study inter-racial relations in 1940s America. Japanese are portrayed as evil, insidious and utterly alien to American society. Attempts of integration or assimilation are bound to fail, which is suggested with scene in Panamanian cinema featuring Japanese immigrants preferring technically inferior movies from their old country to more glamorous Hollywood. Moviemaker's scepticism towards individuals overcoming their cultural and racial background is also underlined with the character of Lorenz's henchman Joe Totsuiko (played by Victor Sen Young) who wants to look and sound more American than Americans themselves only to become a caricature; in the final scenes, Doctor Lorenz, who made a great deal of superiority of Oriental culture, fails miserably in his attempt to follow example of his Japanese role models. This worldview might look unacceptable for most of today's audience, but it is presented very skilfully, which is another reason why ACROSS THE PACIFIC should be seen as something more than simple WW2 propaganda.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
Review written on September 21st 2000
Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax Fido: 2:381/100 E-mail: dragan.antulov@st.tel.hr E-mail: drax@purger.com E-mail: dragan.antulov@altbbs.fido.hr
Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in Croatian http://film.purger.com
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