Across the Pacific

Across the Pacific is minor league stuff in the careers of both John Huston and Humphrey Bogart. It's clearly made as a wartime propaganda film. It certainly doesn't compare to The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo, or The African Queen. It doesn't even have the redeeming feature of campiness that Beat the Devil has. The film is a product of the time. That being said, it's certainly entertaining enough. On an action level it has more of it than The Maltese Falcon from which four cast members were retained. The four repeaters are Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sidney Greenstreet, and John Hamilton. Bogart's not the existential private eye here. He's a cashiered army officer whose trial was really a fake. He's working undercover to find expose some Japanese American fifth columnists. His investigation takes him on a Japanese freighter that does carry passengers on the side. Two of those passengers are an Orientalist professor who teaches at the University of Manila, Sidney Greenstreet and a woman who claims to be from Medicine Hat, Mary Astor. Bogey spends the entire film trying to figure out not only what the dastardly scheme is, but just how Astor fits into it, because he's fallen for her. World War II was the greatest time for employment for oriental players except Japanese ones. A goodly group is in this film, Kam Tong, Philip Ahn, Keye Luke and most of all Victor Sen Yung. Until he played Hop Sing, Ben Cartwright's Chinese cook in Bonanza, Sen Yung was best known for being Charlie Chan's son under a few different Chans. But his role as Joe Tatsuito in this film was pretty good work also. Sen Yung is a hip, jive talking Nisei who is supposed to be a deadly killer. Since he's already identified as such before we actually meet him, there is an aura of menace about Sen Yung even when he's at his friendliest. Sidney Greenstreet as a scholar has become so immersed in Japanese culture and tradition that it has taken him right over the line into treason. Greenstreet is a talker like Casper Guttman in The Maltese Falcon, but in the end he can't walk the walk. What was also happening in 1942 was that we were interning Japanese civilians that year. I don't think Victor Sen Yung being Chinese himself and knowing what the Japanese were doing in the home of his ancestors had any qualms about portraying a man on screen that seemed to be the living justification for such a policy. I've never heard of Across the Pacific being discussed specifically as a propaganda piece for that policy. Nor do I ever remember John Huston ever being questioned about it. Not that he had anything to do with the decision for internment, but it would have been nice to hear his feelings on the subject vis a vis Across the Pacific. Huston didn't even stick around for the finish of Across the Pacific, it was completed under different hands. He went off to the service where he did some really fine documentaries that have stood the test of time. Better than Across the Pacific has.

source: Across the Pacific

Trailer—Across the Pacific

Across the Pacific

Mary Astor wasn't exactly a main love interest in this film and the extremely excellent actress may have very well made her match here by being wrongly cast. The ending bewildered me in the fact that Astor's father has just been shot to death and yet she is able to walk off with Bogart in a comfortable fashion. Sidney Greenstreet is his usual devilish self as it becomes more apparent that he is more than a sociology professor. You don't have to be a genius to figure out that Bogart's discharge from the army was done on purpose so that he could infiltrate a spy ring. Before the real action and intent of the film begins, the scenes on deck are rather dull.

WWII intrigue is served up in the days leading up to the bombing on Pearl Harbor. However, in an apparent late decision by the writers to not mention Pearl Harbor, the bombing target becomes Panama so history can be ignored. Bogart is cool as always as an artillery officer. He is reunited with his co-stars, Astor and Greenstreet, both in fine form, and director Huston from "The Maltese Falcon." Unfortunately, the script is rather convoluted and rambling, seemingly written in a rush to cash in on the success of the earlier film. The dialog is crisp and witty. If only the plot had been better, this could have been a classic.

"Across the Pacific" is a fairly well done spy movie that takes place in the last days before America's entry into World War II. Rick Leland (Humphrey Bogart) is cashiered from the U.S. Army for stealing funds. The events that follow involve a love interest (Mary Astor) and an enemy agent (Sydney Greenstreet) and a trip on a passenger ship from New York to the Panama Canal. Humphrey Bogart as an American spy is convincing in a role that might have been played by Sean Connery 20 years later. The subplot of a Japanese plot to torpedo the Panama Canal and put it out of action was a case of truth being stranger than fiction with the recent revelation of Japanese submarines which carried planes designed to knock the canal out, but which were never used. "Across the Pacific" has humor, action and romance and is one of Bogart's lesser known but very good movies.

Director John Huston, right from the big success of THE MALTESE FALCON, recruits Humphrey Bogart to play ex-Army officer Rick Leland in this World War II propaganda flick. Espionage, treason, a bit of romance in this drama aboard a Japanese steamer. The viewer gradually discovers a few of the passengers are not who they claim to be...including Leland. Bogart woos a small-town girl Alberta Marlow(Mary Astor)...not so innocent. Sydney Greenstreet plays spy Dr. Lorenz, willing to pay for military information. A Japanese-American(Victor Sen Young) making a trip to see the old country may just be the most mysterious passenger aboard. Bogart and Astor trade flirty banter and lighten up some of the drama. Also in the cast: Monte Blue, Charles Halton, Keye Luke and Frank Wilcox.