Even though I haven't been fond of much of anything I've seen Humphrey Bogart in, the summary of this one intrigued me, so I recorded it off TV. It's based off a novel called Sans Patrie (Men Without Country) by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall written in 1942.
A journalist has come to the English countryside to find out how the Free French have been operating in the skies. He meets the commander, who starts to tell the story of a group of men who escaped from French Guyana and worked very hard to get to Britain to fight against the Germans.
Anyway, the men escape with the help of an old man who used to be a prisoner. He acquires a canoe for them, but he ends up having to stay behind because there is too much weight, and he's too old to fight. He decides to leave that for the younger men. After an incident, they are picked up by a boat carrying members of the French military. One of them is suspicious, but they seem to have a believable story. In time, though, things change, and with the surrender of France to the Germans, the situation becomes dangerous.
The captain wants to make sure his ore doesn't get confiscated by the Germans. He knows that certain people on board will not be happy if he changes course, but he tries it anyway. A fight breaks out on deck between the two factions, until the free men take control. One of the traitors escapes and radios their position to Germany, and then the ship comes under attack. When the smoke clears, the remaining men head to England to fight for freedom.
This was something. I'm even sure how to describe the convoluted storytelling they used. Most of the movie is one sort of flashback or another. At one point, there were four layers of flashback going on. Crazy! I still wasn't a big fan of Bogart, but I was interested enough in the other characters that I wasn't too distracted. It was a bit strange to see Peter Lorre in a role like this, but I knew he had some range after I saw him in M. The "special effects" were...interesting, and the love story was just okay. I commend the effort, but this movie just didn't impress me.
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