Tangier and Casablanca are very different cities, but both are fun locales. They’re about two-hundred miles apart by road. We’ve driven the route. What we’ll say next we’ve said before many times—Casablanca was the most influential movie of its era. It wasn’t the first love story-adventure Hollywood set in a foreign land, but it changed the game. It took already established elements—music, cynical men, tropical suits, military intrigue, and political turmoil—and elevated them to new heights with better budgeting, writing, casting, acting, and—crucially—sharp and cynical humor. Tangier, for which you see a promo poster above, is yet another Casablanca influenced movie, and like the physical cities, we expected them to be somewhat different, but both fun.
We were wrong about the somewhat different part. Robert Paige plays a discredited news journalist drawn into a dangerous effort by Maria Montez to thwart an infamous Nazi named Balizaar who wishes to escape Morocco. Within the plot you get a Casablanca style hotel and bar as a centerpiece, musical performances by a loyal sidekick, and an array of shady characters and bemedaled military officers shooting significant looks at each other. There are also wistful reminiscences of a beautiful city before war—Barcelona instead of Paris—and bitter recollections of fascist invasion. There are not one but two love triangles, involving five people. There’s even a looming night flight to Lisbon. Oh yes, the Casablanca is strong with this one.
But what isn’t strong are all the underpinnings. The story lacks momentum, the dialogue is portentous, the quips mostly fall flat, and the musical performances are weak. There are some plusses, though not quite enough to make for a good movie. There’s a large and extravagant exterior sequence shot at Universal Studios but meant to evoke Tangier, and there’s an excellently imagined and staged climax involving an elevator. But in the end the distance between Casablanca and Tangier is more than just two-hundred miles of Moroccan roadway—it’s light years of artistic ability. Yet as with so many vintage movies with exotic settings, Tangier is worth a look just to see the filmmakers’ vision of a foreign land. It premiered today in 1946.
