Tons of double talk in this Casablanca-esque WWII film starring Paul Henreid, Peter Lorre, Hedy Lamar, and Sydney Greenstreet. Paul Henreid plays Vincent Van Der Lyn, a Dutch school teacher in the Netherlands, who was arrested for teaching ideas counter to the German Nazi philosophy, he escaped confinement and became a disruptive freedom fighter during WWII. This lead to three years of hiding and performing such seditious acts as blowing up train tracks to break up the infrastructure. On the run from the Nazi's, he arrives in the neutral Lisbon as a stop over to reaching England where he hopes to join the Allied forces. One of Vincent's first stops on his Lisbon layover is a restaurant where he orders a meal he has been dreaming of for three years...a thick steak, white bread, butter, etc. Unfortunately at the restaurant he meets the mysterious Irene.
Irene Von Mohr, who is played by the lovely Hedy Lamar, is an enigma who sits down at Vincent's table and asks him to buy her a Sherry after her contact outside in the street is shot and killed. Using Vincent for cover in the restaurant, she uses him until the heat is off and then she gives him the slip out the back door. This begins an interesting relationship full of more double-talk and intrigue. Unfortunately, Vincent ends up in a Portuguese prison for a crime he didn't commit and adding to the depth of the plot line of anti-Nazi intrigue.
Hedy Lamar is gorgeous and the luminous pearls really show off her beauty in her initial scenes. Costume-wise I have to mention the spectacular (and I assume rhinestone) necklace that Hedy wear later in the film with a cluster of sparkly flowers on a black fabric band around her neck...it makes even her eyes sparkle in this black and white film. Paul Henreid, for his part, is equally handsome matching Hedy stride for stride in their budding romantic dance. Greenstreet and Lorre are their usual selves rounding out this cast of phenomenal actors.
If you are a fan of any one of the four leads, or a fan of WWII films, I would strongly recommend giving this a watch. It often gets compared to Casablanca and found wanting, but if you go in with an open mind...you might find the differences enjoyable. I liked the action scenes at the beginning as well as some of the subtler scenes like the young boy at the airport, the food order, fishing and sitting around a fire and while it isn't my favorite film, it is definitely worth seeing at least once.
Irene Von Mohr, who is played by the lovely Hedy Lamar, is an enigma who sits down at Vincent's table and asks him to buy her a Sherry after her contact outside in the street is shot and killed. Using Vincent for cover in the restaurant, she uses him until the heat is off and then she gives him the slip out the back door. This begins an interesting relationship full of more double-talk and intrigue. Unfortunately, Vincent ends up in a Portuguese prison for a crime he didn't commit and adding to the depth of the plot line of anti-Nazi intrigue.
Hedy Lamar is gorgeous and the luminous pearls really show off her beauty in her initial scenes. Costume-wise I have to mention the spectacular (and I assume rhinestone) necklace that Hedy wear later in the film with a cluster of sparkly flowers on a black fabric band around her neck...it makes even her eyes sparkle in this black and white film. Paul Henreid, for his part, is equally handsome matching Hedy stride for stride in their budding romantic dance. Greenstreet and Lorre are their usual selves rounding out this cast of phenomenal actors.
If you are a fan of any one of the four leads, or a fan of WWII films, I would strongly recommend giving this a watch. It often gets compared to Casablanca and found wanting, but if you go in with an open mind...you might find the differences enjoyable. I liked the action scenes at the beginning as well as some of the subtler scenes like the young boy at the airport, the food order, fishing and sitting around a fire and while it isn't my favorite film, it is definitely worth seeing at least once.