Action in Arabia (1944)

Simply A Masterpiece

Must See Movie...

Just perfect...

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

The action of this film never got anywhere near the Arabian peninsula for a film titled Action In Arabia. I guess the alliteration got to the folks at RKO when they titled this film as the scene of the action is Damascus.Which was after World War I Syria was a French mandate per the Versailles treaty. When France fell in 1940 the various colonial possessions had their own internal battles as to whether to declare loyalty to the Vichy regime or the Free French of DeGaulle. Then there were the various Arab tribes not to mention the Druse people in Syria who were not mentioned in the film all of them having their own idea on which horse to place their bets.George Sanders is an American reporter who had been covering the backwoods theater of Iraq during World War II. He's stopping in Damascus, but he also recognizes Alan Napier as a Nazi agent on the plane with Lenore Aubert who is the daughter of influential sheik H.B. Warner. He sends a colleague with a bead on the story who unfortunately gets killed following it up.Now Sanders is on a mission to see what's going on. With the help of Virginia Bruce and her father Gene Lockhart who we really never trust simply because its Gene Lockhart and you know the roles he's normally cast in. There's also Robert Armstrong of the American Foreign Service who's a bit thick but comes through in a crisis. It's a decent action propaganda programmer from RKO though it should have been entitled Intrigue In Damascus.

Action in Arabia opens with an introduction by the narrator, while displaying a boundary map of Africa, europe, and the middle east as of 1944. Starring the dashing George Sanders (from All About Eve) and Gene Lockhart, we go running around Syria looking for those Nazi's during WW II. Also look for H B Warner (who had played the great "Chang" in Lost Horizon, and JC in "King of Kings"). There has to be a lovely lady at the center of these things, and here its Virginia Bruce playing Yvonne Danesco, the wife of a crooked gambler, at the very least. People start getting knocked off, and away we go! Because we're off in a far away land, and chasing spies, its quite exotic, but according to IMDb, its mostly all filmed in LA. Scoping out the cast list, apparently Bud Wiser played "the man"...... actually, the beer WAS first; it has been around since 1883! Directed by Russian turned Frenchman Leonide Moguy, this was only one of the three English speaking films he did between 1936 and 1961. With some arabic ,german, and french language thrown in, a fun war-time adventure.

Two Western journalists are on their way home through Syria when they see a familiar face talk with the daughter of an Arab leader. When one follows the man later that night, he is found dead. His colleague Michael Gordon investigates and finds clues pointing to a plot to pervert the leadership of the tribes and lead them with the Nazi's against the allied forces.I watched this film simply because the title caught my eye in the schedules. Given the fact that the screening occurred while other channels were covering the war on Iraq as part of their news cycle, I initially assumed it was a documentary of some sort. A look to see it was a film made decades ago suggested that the schedulers had maybe been guilty of bad taste. However watching it there was little to support this thought.The film is set in the Middle East which, in this film, spreads from Iraq across into Africa ending in Morocco. The politics of the area are difficult now and were still complex when this film was made, so the plot decides to mostly ignore internal issues and focus on the bigger picture of the Nazi threat. By doing so it becomes a bit of propaganda that almost works quite well, but mostly means the plot becomes quite straightforward. The film focuses on the potential for the Nazi's to use the tribes to sweep through the Middle East and Africa and Gordon's investigation to stop it. Mostly the film is very talky and even the action scenes are quite pedestrian (despite the music played loudly thought them), this would be OK if it had a bit more twists and turns but really it goes where you expect it to. This is not to say it is bad – but it is pretty unremarkable.Sanders plays it as usual – upright, tough and gentlemanly, he also is quite stiff and unanimated. This works well for the majority but I would have liked a little more heart in it. The support cast are all OK but are strangely (or perhaps not so strangely) made up of mostly white characters playing Arabs – only the crowd shots appear to use non-white faces. This isn't a major detraction but it is a distraction at times – esp when supposed Arab princesses are played by white women who would be more at home shopping in Manhattan.Overall this is a sturdy little film that is short but still feels a little too long. The straightforward plot and talky nature make it feel a little dull at times but there is just enough going on to hold the interest.

Basically, this is a Casablanca rip-off by RKO about passion and hidden Nazi sympathies in World War II Damascus. Ex-Simon Templer ("The Saint!") star George Sanders is on impeccable form as a New York reporter (with a British accent) on the trail of Nazi sympathisers in the desert. When his fellow reporter is murdered, Sanders (in a white dinner-jacket that predates Sean Connery's wearing of it in Goldfinger by some 20 years) sets off coolly to track down the killers, uncovering a plot in which the Nazis aim to unite the Arab tribes against the Allied forces. The story is pure hokum, but never mind. Some of the action and the audacity of the plot are breath-taking and anyone who enjoys The Saint or The Falcon films, or Casablanca, will probably enjoy it. It's only a pity Sanders didn't make more films as the hero -- this was his last. After this, he would only play the sneering villain and, eventually, become a real-life parody of his own screen persona. A pity, as he really could have been more hero than cad when the fit took him. If you like this movie, check out the novel by George Sanders (actually ghosted by Falcon screenwriter Craig Rice) called "Crime on My Hands" in which Sanders has to solve a muder on a film set. It's light, amusing and reminiscent of the Saint/Falcon films that made Sanders a star in the first place.