Saturday, August 07, 2021

Across the Pacific

Across the Pacific. Bogart cast out of the Army – epaulets yanked - but it is all a subterfuge – Taking a steamer via the Panama Canal and then to China – joing a cast of intrigue. The cast of Charlie Chan meets the Maltese Falcon – the ship supremely functional – the Japanese plane – a Futurist’s Italian dream – fat Euro scholar of the orient Dr. Lorenz (Sydney Greenstreet) is a connoisseur of the Japanese poets’ penchant to objectify abstractly small things. Wry trace of the New York docks and sense of absurdity in the hard smile of Bogart in the face of evil plot. No they never get to the Pacific. But they save the Canal from the Zero. Strangely, I am reading Blaise Cendrars "Panama or the Adventures of My 7 Uncles" from Complete Poems. The poem - as well as his epic TransSiberian Railway - seem  to see toward this age of WB cinema.

Guy on left will get got in order very short.

 

1 comment:

Jack Vaughan said...

In imagination wonder: What if Hart Crane were a passenger on that ship .... ?