Ankara Turkey is a "Background to Danger" in this 1943 spy film starring George Raft, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, and Brenda Marshall.
Like others on this site, you'll be happy after seeing this that George Raft turned down all those films that made Humphrey Bogart an icon.
Raft plays Joe Barton, who meets Ana Renzi (Osa Massen) on a train. She gives him money to hold for her - she will be searched upon leaving the train, but because he's an American, he won't be. The envelope she gives him is actually a series of plans sought by the Russians and the Germans, and both factions know Barton has them.
Normally the presence of Lorre and Greenstreet was enough to lift a film out of mediocrity, but unfortunately here they don't have enough to do to really help. Lorre and Marshall play a Russian brother and sister after the documents, and Greenstreet is on the side of the Nazis. The Germans are trying to convince the Turks that Russia is about to invade them in order to destroy their neutrality and bring them over to the Nazis. These plans apparently outline a false attack about to take place.
This is one of those films that you forget as soon as it's over. It's a lot of deadpan delivery by Raft as everyone chases him. It was nice to see Turhan Bey in a small role. Raft could be fine in a role that suited his tough look and monotone delivery - I liked Nocturne, for instance - but here he misses.
Directed by the reliable Raoul Walsh, this could have been one of the films Jack Warner asked him to do as a favor. Apparently Warner was always bringing Walsh to his office and saying, you have to do film script for me. Walsh would ask, who's in it? Warner would say, "I don't know. Some bums."
Like others on this site, you'll be happy after seeing this that George Raft turned down all those films that made Humphrey Bogart an icon.
Raft plays Joe Barton, who meets Ana Renzi (Osa Massen) on a train. She gives him money to hold for her - she will be searched upon leaving the train, but because he's an American, he won't be. The envelope she gives him is actually a series of plans sought by the Russians and the Germans, and both factions know Barton has them.
Normally the presence of Lorre and Greenstreet was enough to lift a film out of mediocrity, but unfortunately here they don't have enough to do to really help. Lorre and Marshall play a Russian brother and sister after the documents, and Greenstreet is on the side of the Nazis. The Germans are trying to convince the Turks that Russia is about to invade them in order to destroy their neutrality and bring them over to the Nazis. These plans apparently outline a false attack about to take place.
This is one of those films that you forget as soon as it's over. It's a lot of deadpan delivery by Raft as everyone chases him. It was nice to see Turhan Bey in a small role. Raft could be fine in a role that suited his tough look and monotone delivery - I liked Nocturne, for instance - but here he misses.
Directed by the reliable Raoul Walsh, this could have been one of the films Jack Warner asked him to do as a favor. Apparently Warner was always bringing Walsh to his office and saying, you have to do film script for me. Walsh would ask, who's in it? Warner would say, "I don't know. Some bums."