14 June 2009

We'll always have the Casbah

Pepe le Moko

(1936)
So that's what Rick Blaine did before Paris: he was a jewel thief.

Tough, self-sufficient guy with a complicated relationship with the local gendarmerie in French north Africa eventually risks it all for une femme. There are other elements that the Epstein brothers lifted, including some dialogue that eventually explains Ugarte's trust in Rick, but then this one isn't altogether original, either, swiping a key plot element from Romeo and Juliet.

Another film that while watching I marvel at the waste of never having seen it before.

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