Casbah (film)
Encyclopedia
Casbah is a musical film
Musical film
The musical film is a film genre in which songs sung by the characters are interwoven into the narrative, sometimes accompanied by dancing. The songs usually advance the plot or develop the film's characters, though in some cases they serve merely as breaks in the storyline, often as elaborate...
directed by John Berry
John Berry (film director)
John Berry was an American film director, who went into self-exile in France when his career was interrupted by the Hollywood blacklist.-Early Life:...
, starring Yvonne DeCarlo and Tony Martin
Tony Martin (entertainer)
Tony Martin is an American actor and singer.-Career:Tony Martin was born on Christmas Day, 1913 as Alvin Morris in San Francisco, California to Jewish immigrant parents. He received a saxophone as a gift from his grandmother at the age of ten. In his grammar school glee club, he became an...
, and released by Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
.
Plot
Casbah tells the story about a bad boy (Tony Martin who plays Pepe Le Moko) who meets a beautiful girl (Marta Toren who plays Gaby). The girl has scruples and rejects the Pepe because of his criminal activities (he’s a crime lord in the CasbahCasbah
The Casbah ) is specifically the citadel of Algiers in Algeria and the traditional quarter clustered around it. More generally, a kasbah is the walled citadel of many North African cities and towns...
). She rejects Pepe because of who he is, with the hint that if he reforms, he might have a chance with her.
Believing he will not reform, she leaves the Casbah to catch a plane to leave Morocco forever. His love for her changes him and he sacrifices the safety of the Casbah and his network of associates, who have too much power for the authorities within the Casbah to apprehend him.
As a consequence when he leaves the Casbah he is shot and apprehended by the authorities. As he lies wounded possibly fatally, there is a poignant last scene where Inez is seen in the window of the plane but fails to look outside where Pepe pleadingly looks in vain to her for a single glance.
Cast and roles
- Yvonne De CarloYvonne De CarloYvonne De Carlo was a Canadian-born American actress of film and television. During her six-decade career, her most frequent appearances in film came in the 1940s and 1950s and included her best-known film roles, such as of Anna Marie in Salome Where She Danced ; Anna in Criss Cross ; Sephora the...
- Inez - Tony MartinTony Martin (entertainer)Tony Martin is an American actor and singer.-Career:Tony Martin was born on Christmas Day, 1913 as Alvin Morris in San Francisco, California to Jewish immigrant parents. He received a saxophone as a gift from his grandmother at the age of ten. In his grammar school glee club, he became an...
- Pepe Le Moko - Peter LorrePeter LorrePeter 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...
- Slimane - Märta TorénMärta TorénMärta Torén was a Swedish stage and film actress of the 1940s and 1950s.Torén began her career on the stage and from 1947 she appeared in films. She appeared on the cover of the June 13 issue of Life Magazine in 1949....
- Gaby - Hugo HaasHugo HaasHugo Haas was a Czech film actor, director and writer. He appeared in over 60 films between 1926 and 1962, as well as directing 20 films between 1933 and 1962....
- Omar - Thomas GomezThomas GomezThomas Gomez was an American actor.Born Sabino Tomas Gomez in New York City, Gomez began his acting career in theater during the 1920s and was a student of the actor Walter Hampden...
- Louvain - Douglas DickDouglas DickDouglas Dick is a retired American actor.- Career :Douglas Dick is best known for his role as Carl Herrick in the TV series Waterfront , and as Kenneth Lawrence in the Alfred Hitchcock film Rope .He was married to Ronnie Cowan until their 1960 divorce, and to television screenwriter Peggy Chantler...
- Carlo - Herbert RudleyHerbert RudleyHerbert Rudley, , was a prolific character actor who appeared on stage, in films and on television.Rudley was born in 1910 in Philadelphia, and attended Temple University. He left Temple after winning a scholarship to Eva Le Gallienne's Civic Repertory Theatre.He began appearing on stage in 1926...
- Claude - Gene WalkerGene Walker-Gene Walker:In 1910, Walker obtained his first motorcycle, an Excelsior. At 17 he worked as a postal delivery person in Birmingham using an Indian motorcycle for delivering mail. Walker entered his first motorcycle race at the 1912 Alabama State Fair and won the five-mile final...
- Roland - Curt ConwayCurt ConwayCurt Conway was an American actor. He was sometimes billed as Curtis Conway or Kurt Conway.Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Conway began his career with small parts in films of the late 1940s, but appeared principally on TV from 1960 until his death...
- Maurice
Awards
In 1949, the film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original SongAcademy Award for Best Original Song
The Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences . It is presented to the songwriters who have composed the best original song written specifically for a film...
for the song "For Every Man There's a Woman" by Harold Arlen
Harold Arlen
Harold Arlen was an American composer of popular music, having written over 500 songs, a number of which have become known the world over. In addition to composing the songs for The Wizard of Oz, including the classic 1938 song, "Over the Rainbow,” Arlen is a highly regarded contributor to the...
(music) and Leo Robin
Leo Robin
Leo Robin was an American composer, lyricist and songwriter. He is probably best known for collaborating with Ralph Rainger on the 1938 Oscar-winning song "Thanks for the Memory," sung by Bob Hope in the film The Big Broadcast of 1938.-Biography:Robin was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and...
(lyrics).
See also
- Pépé le MokoPépé le MokoPépé le Moko is a 1937 French film directed by Julien Duvivier and starring Jean Gabin. It depicts an infamous gangster, Pépé le Moko who tries to escape the police by hiding in the casbah of the city of Algiers...
, a 1937 film - AlgiersAlgiers (film)Algiers is a 1938 American drama film directed by John Cromwell and starring Charles Boyer, Sigrid Gurie, and Hedy Lamarr. The Walter Wanger production was a remake of the successful 1937 French film Pépé le Moko, which derived its plot from the Henri La Barthe novel of the same name...
, a 1938 film - CasbahCasbahThe Casbah ) is specifically the citadel of Algiers in Algeria and the traditional quarter clustered around it. More generally, a kasbah is the walled citadel of many North African cities and towns...
, the citadel of AlgiersAlgiers' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...