Passage to Marseille is a 1944

1944 in film

The year 1944 in film involved some significant events, including the wholesome, award-winning Going My Way plus popular murder mysteries such as Double Indemnity, Gaslight and Laura.-Events:*July 20 - Since You Went Away is released....

 war film

War film

War films are a film genre concerned with warfare, usually about naval, air or land battles, sometimes focusing instead on prisoners of war, covert operations, military training or other related subjects. At times war films focus on daily military or civilian life in wartime without depicting battles...

 made by Warner Brothers, directed by Michael Curtiz

Michael Curtiz

Michael Curtiz was an Academy award winning Hungarian-American film director. He had early creditsas Mihály Kertész and Michael Kertész...

 and produced by Hal B. Wallis

Hal B. Wallis

Hal B. Wallis was an American film producer.-Career:Harold Brent Wallis was born in Chicago in 1898. His family moved in 1922 to Los Angeles, California, where he found work as part of the publicity department at Warner Bros...

 with Jack L. Warner as executive producer. The screenplay

Screenplay

A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...

 was by Casey Robinson

Casey Robinson

Casey Robinson was an American producer and director of mostly B movies and a screenwriter responsible for some of Bette Davis' most revered films...

 and Jack Moffitt

Jack Moffitt

Jack Moffitt is a computer scientist, software developer and entrepreneur. He is co-author of the GNU GPL licensed streaming media server Icecast and often works on software using XMPP, JavaScript and Erlang. He also worked as executive director of Xiph.Org Foundation and developer of Ogg Vorbis...

 from the novel Sans Patrie (Men Without Country) by Charles Nordhoff

Charles Nordhoff

Charles Bernard Nordhoff was an English-born American novelist and traveler.-Early life:Charles Nordhoff was born in London, England, on February 1, 1887, to American parents. His father was Walter Nordhoff, a wealthy businessman and author of The Journey of the Flame penned under the name...

 and James Norman Hall

James Norman Hall

James Norman Hall was an American author best known for the novel Mutiny on the Bounty with co-author Charles Nordhoff.-Biography:Hall was born in Colfax, Iowa, where he attended the local schools...

. The music score was by Max Steiner

Max Steiner

Max Steiner was an Austrian composer of music for theatre productions and films. He later became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Trained by the great classical music composers Brahms and Mahler, he was one of the first composers who primarily wrote music for motion pictures, and as...

 and the cinematography was by James Wong Howe

James Wong Howe

James Wong Howe, A.S.C. was a Chinese American cinematographer who worked on over 130 films...

.

The film reunited much of the cast of Casablanca

Casablanca (film)

Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid, and featuring Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson. Set during World War II, it focuses on a man torn between, in...

(1942), also directed by Curtiz, including Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....

, Claude Rains

Claude Rains

Claude Rains was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned 66 years. He was known for many roles in Hollywood films, among them the title role in The Invisible Man , a corrupt senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Mr...

, Sydney Greenstreet

Sydney Greenstreet

Sydney Hughes Greenstreet was an English actor. He is best known for his Warner Bros. films with Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre, which include The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca .-Biography:...

, Peter Lorre

Peter Lorre

Peter Lorre was an Austrian-American actor frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner.He caused an international sensation in 1931 with his portrayal of a serial killer who preys on little girls in the German film M...

, and Helmut Dantine

Helmut Dantine

Helmut Dantine was a film actor remembered for playing many Nazis in thriller films of the 1940s. The Vienna-born actor appeared uncredited in Casablanca early in his career .Dantine's father was the head of the Austrian railway system...

. Michèle Morgan

Michèle Morgan

Michèle Morgan is a French film actress, who was a leading lady for three decades.- Career :Morgan was born Simone Renée Roussel in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, a western suburb of Paris....

 (who had been the original choice for Casablanca), Victor Francen

Victor Francen

Victor Francen , born Victor Franssens, was a Belgian-born actor with a long career in French cinema and in Hollywood....

, Philip Dorn

Philip Dorn

Philip Dorn , born Hein van der Niet and sometimes billed as Frits van Dongen, was a Dutch actor who had a career in Hollywood....

 and George Tobias

George Tobias

George Tobias was an American character actor.-Early life and career:Born to a Jewish family in New York, he began his acting career at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, California. He then spent several years in theater groups before moving on to Broadway and, eventually, Hollywood...

 are also featured.

Plot

It is one of the few films to use a flashback

Flashback (narrative)

Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...

 within a flashback within a flashback, following the narrative structure of the novel on which it is based. The film opens at an airbase in England during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. Free French Captain Freycinet (Claude Rains) tells a journalist the story of the French pilots stationed there.

This opens into the first flashback, set on the tramp steamer

Tramp steamer

A ship engaged in the tramp trade is one which does not have a fixed schedule or published ports of call. As opposed to freight liners, tramp ships trade on the spot market with no fixed schedule or itinerary/ports-of-call...

 Ville de Nancy just before the defeat of France by the Germans

Battle of France

In the Second World War, the Battle of France was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries, beginning on 10 May 1940, which ended the Phoney War. The battle consisted of two main operations. In the first, Fall Gelb , German armoured units pushed through the Ardennes, to cut off and...

. Five convicts are found adrift in a small canoe in the Caribbean Sea

Caribbean Sea

The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean located in the tropics of the Western hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico and Central America to the west and southwest, to the north by the Greater Antilles, and to the east by the Lesser Antilles....

: Marius (Peter Lorre), Garou (Helmut Dantine), Petit (George Tobias), Renault (Philip Dorn) and their leader, Matrac (Humphrey Bogart). Taken aboard, they tell Captain Patain Malo (Victor Francen) the story of their escape from the French prison colony at Cayenne

Cayenne

Cayenne is the capital of French Guiana, an overseas region and department of France located in South America. The city stands on a former island at the mouth of the Cayenne River on the Atlantic coast. The city's motto is "Ferit Aurum Industria" which means "Work brings wealth"...

 in French Guiana

French Guiana

French Guiana is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department located on the northern Atlantic coast of South America. It has borders with two nations, Brazil to the east and south, and Suriname to the west...

 (the second flashback). They had been recruited by Grandpère (Vladimir Sokoloff), a fervently patriotic ex-convict, to fight for France in her hour of need. That leads to another flashback (the third), in which the inmates recount Matrac's troubles in pre-war France

French Third Republic

The French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...

 to convince the old man to choose Matrac to lead the escape. A crusading newspaper publisher, Matrac had been framed for murder to shut him up.

By the time the Ville de Nancy nears the port of Marseille

Marseille

Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...

, France has surrendered to Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

, and a collaborationist Vichy government

Vichy France

Vichy France, Vichy Regime, or Vichy Government, are common terms used to describe the government of France that collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944. This government succeeded the Third Republic and preceded the Provisional Government of the French Republic...

 has been set up. Upon hearing the news, the captain secretly decides not to deliver his valuable cargo to the Germans. Pro-Vichy passenger Major Duval (Sydney Greenstreet) organizes an attempt to seize control of the ship, but is defeated, in great part due to the escapees. When they reach England, the convicts join the Free French forces.

Matrac becomes a gunner on a bomber. His wife Paula (Michèle Morgan) and their son, whom he has never seen, live in occupied France. So, after each mission, he flies over their house and drops a letter. This time however, there is no message; Matrac has been killed in combat.

Cast

As appearing in the screen credits:

Actor	Role
Humphrey Bogart Humphrey Bogart Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....	Jean Matrac
Claude Rains Claude Rains Claude Rains was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned 66 years. He was known for many roles in Hollywood films, among them the title role in The Invisible Man , a corrupt senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Mr...	Captain Freycinet
Michèle Morgan Michèle Morgan Michèle Morgan is a French film actress, who was a leading lady for three decades.- Career :Morgan was born Simone Renée Roussel in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, a western suburb of Paris....  (as Michele Morgan)	Paula
Philip Dorn Philip Dorn Philip Dorn , born Hein van der Niet and sometimes billed as Frits van Dongen, was a Dutch actor who had a career in Hollywood....	Renault
Sydney Greenstreet Sydney Greenstreet Sydney Hughes Greenstreet was an English actor. He is best known for his Warner Bros. films with Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre, which include The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca .-Biography:...	Major Duval
Peter Lorre Peter Lorre Peter Lorre was an Austrian-American actor frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner.He caused an international sensation in 1931 with his portrayal of a serial killer who preys on little girls in the German film M...	Marius
George Tobias George Tobias George Tobias was an American character actor.-Early life and career:Born to a Jewish family in New York, he began his acting career at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, California. He then spent several years in theater groups before moving on to Broadway and, eventually, Hollywood...	Petit
Helmut Dantine Helmut Dantine Helmut Dantine was a film actor remembered for playing many Nazis in thriller films of the 1940s. The Vienna-born actor appeared uncredited in Casablanca early in his career .Dantine's father was the head of the Austrian railway system...	Garou
John Loder John Loder (actor) John Loder was a British-American actor. He was born William John Muir Lowe in London.-Early life:Loder's father was General W. H. M. Lowe, the British officer to whom Patrick Pearse, the leader of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin, Ireland, surrendered...	Manning
Victor Francen Victor Francen Victor Francen , born Victor Franssens, was a Belgian-born actor with a long career in French cinema and in Hollywood....	Captain Patain Malo
Vladimir Sokoloff	Grandpère
Eduardo Ciannelli Eduardo Ciannelli Eduardo Ciannelli, sometimes credited as Edward Ciannelli, , was an Italian baritone and character actor with a long career in American films, mostly playing gangsters and criminals.-Early life:...  (as Edward Ciannelli)	Chief Engineer

Production

Although exotic locales were called for, principal photography by James Wong Howe actually took place at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden

Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden

The Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden, 127 acres , is an arboretum, botanical garden, and historical site nestled into hills near the San Gabriel Mountains, at 301 North Baldwin Avenue, Arcadia, California, USA...

 in Arcadia, California

Arcadia, California

Arcadia is an affluent city in Los Angeles County, California, United States, and located approximately northeast of downtown Los Angeles in the San Gabriel Valley and at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains....

 with further location shooting at Victorville, California

Victorville, California

Victorville is a city located in the Victor Valley of southwestern San Bernardino County, California. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's 2010 census, the city had a population of 115,903, up from 64,030 at the 2000 census.-Geography and climate:...

. Based on a Nordhoff-Hall novel, the story veered into propaganda near the end, although censors actually cut a scene in the foreign version that showed Bogart's character machine gunning German pilots.

Before Bogart began work on the film, preproduction had been underway for six months, but due to a conflict with Jack Warner over another prospective film Conflict, his starring role as Matrac was in jeopardy, with Jean Gabin

Jean Gabin

-Biography:Born Jean-Alexis Moncorgé in Paris, he grew up in the village of Mériel in the Seine-et-Oise département, about 22 mi north of Paris. The son of cabaret entertainers, he attended the Lycée Janson de Sailly...

 being touted as a replacement. Although the issue was decided, Bogart's portrayal was hampered by marital difficulties and a lack of commitment to the project.

Although the flying sequences show the Free French Air Force

Free French Air Force

The Free French Air Force was the air arm of the Free French Forces during the Second World War.-Fighting for Free France — the FAFL in French North Africa :...

  using B-17 Flying Fortress bombers, the production took liberties with the actual bombing campaign carried out by the Free French units. The use of the ubiquitous B-17 was due to its being recognizable to American audiences.