CANDLELIGHT IN ALGERIA (1944)

This British B-film is another poor man's CASABLANCA with wartime intrigue and romantic entanglements playing out in French North Africa, just before the Allies invaded, so the complicated morality of Vichy France, theoretically not under German command, plays a part in the proceedings. American artist Susanne Foster (Carla Lehmann) is alone in the home of relatives in Algiers when British agent Alan Thurston (James Mason) breaks in, on the run from the Germans. She allows him to hide while Dr. Mueller and his men search for him. After they leave, Alan reveals the movie's MacGuffin: a dead comrade's camera with a picture on it of something that the Germans want. He knows who has it, a movie starlet named Maritza, but he thinks she's waiting  to sell it to the highest bidder, so Susanne agrees to visit Maritza, on the pretext of wanting her to model, and steal the camera. This, of course, gets Susanne entangled in Alan's espionage; she is leered at by a German officer, briefly held captive by Mueller, and eventually runs into Henri, an old flame.  All the time, she keeps up with Alan and mocks his wispy mustache while he deals with his mistress, a waitress named Yvette who is desperate to hold on to Alan even as she senses that he is falling for Susanne. The MacGuffin leads to a secret meeting of Allied commanders at what is constantly described as a "lonely house" on the coastline; can our heroes stop the Nazis from disrupting the coming invasion of North Africa?

Despite the constant promise of action, the movie is slow going, mostly episodic build-up with little payoff—even an escape from the Casbah and a climactic car chase are underdone. But the characters and actors kept me interested. The young James Mason is quite dashing and light on his feet, and I didn't even mind the much-mocked mustache (which he eventually shaves off); Canadian actor Carla Lehmann only made a handful of movies in the 1940s and apparently went on to stage and TV, but she holds down the fort nicely here with a combination of wide-eyed excitement and calming gravity. Among the supporting players, standouts are Pamela Stirling as Yvette, Leslie Bradley as Henri, and Walter Rilla as Mueller. I would have been happy with any of them having their roles expanded. Definitely not a film noir, despite its presence on some noir lists (I guess because most of it takes place at night), but a fairly decent B-spy thriller. [Streaming]