Yogi's Movie Consumption Blog

A boatman is forced to transport refugees in his boat from Martinique while under surveillance of the local police. The story is not of high suspense, and I wondered why. I found that it tries too hard to be a romantic story and thrilling war story at the same time, maybe trying to satisfy too many tastes at the same time. Lauren Bacall is nice, the dialogue is funny but the overall story feels a bit contrived and doesn't line up too well with the hard-boiled side of Bogart's character. The interrogation scene with the police inspector is amazing to watch - and so are the big man's other appearances in the movie. I even think he nicely managed to tie together the love story and the political aspects of the whole thing.

 After his wedding a sworn bachelor finds out that his family is completely insane ... and very murderous. Obviously, the film is very stagey, but although Grant highly disliked his own performance in this film it was quite obvious for me that only this caricatured way would work good. It took me about 30 minutes to get used to this style of comedy, but once I got past the cringe moments I really enjoyed the rest of the film. There are some funny twists at the end and I really liked the setup with the toxic wine that never gets payed off (a really nice idea) and more than once throwing me off the track.