While John Cromwell's Hollywood remake of Julien Duvivier's 'Pepe le Moko' from the year before is evidently the lesser film, still it has its share of artistic success. Cameraman James Wong Howe establishes a shifty, exotically attractive and morally uncertain milieu out of the casbah, the sordid urban jungle that is a city unto itself in the center of Algiers.
This is where the outcasts live, from all over the world, criminals, prostitutes, go-getters. French jewel thief Pepe lives here too, in exile but surrounded by good, loyal friends of every ethnic persuasion. Here he makes quick escapes over the rooftops and everybody protects him. The police has futile dreams of luring him out of the casbah where they can get to him, and maybe a visiting Parisian siren can be of help? Cromwell's version is very faithful to the original French film, and in every instance that I could think of is it inferior. But Howe's refined cinematography, the lighting and, most of all, Charles Boyer all make this a worthwhile watching experience. He is suave and magnetic, his accent intoxicating, and the scenes between him and the sultry Hedy Lamarr are cinema history, their meeting in the sleazy club where long, lingering closeups show the way he impresses himself on her, and this is one extremely sexy, even smoky encounter.
So, watch it, and then do yourself the favor of looking up Julien Duvivier's film, a vastly better one.
