Tampico (1944)

Good concept, poorly executed.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Oil tanker captain Edward G. Robinson picks up shipwreck survivors during WW2. Among them is pretty Lynn Bari. The middle-aged captain falls for her and the two are married, despite the objections of his friend and first mate, Victor McLaglen. Later, after his ship is sunk by a torpedo, his new bride is suspected of being a German agent. Eddie sets out to uncover the truth and hopefully clear her name.Perhaps only in the fantasyland of movies can a woman as attractive as Lynn Bari be into a guy that looks like Edward G. Robinson (without him being rich, of course). I was able to keep my inner cynic in check on this part of the story. The rest of it is a little more far-fetched but I won't spoil all of it for you. Let's just say what Robinson does to investigate I've seen in older movies before and it always stretches credulity. Eddie's good and Lynn's not bad, either. Victor McLaglen is wasted in his blah part. It's a watchable WW2 flick. Robinson fans will like it more than most.

Maybe it's just me, but I had a hard time believing Edward G. Robinson and Victor McLaglen as officers in the Merchant Marines. But, this could have worked--as these men were not regular military men and were sometimes older and less physically fit men. However, Robinson really was not up to this part for another reason. When their oil tanker comes upon the wreckage of a ship sunk by the Nazis, they rescue a group of survivors--including Lynn Bari who is inexplicably attracted to Robinson. Why a seemingly 'hot' woman would come on THIS strong to a short, paunchy, middle-aged man didn't make sense. Perhaps Robinson's character was a nice fella, but she didn't even have a chance to find out before she started pouring on the charm and sex appeal. In real life, such a woman NEVER would have made such a play or the guy would have wondered what were her ulterior motives--as it just made no sense. With a different cast, perhaps this could work. Now it is NOT that I dislike Robinson--he was a fine actor and I ALWAYS try to see any film of his I haven't seen before (like this one). He just was cast badly...or, perhaps, it might have worked if the relationship between him and Bari had occurred slowly and realistically.Once the group was rescued, for some odd reason none of the other survivors seems to have remembered seeing Bari among the passengers. And so, the viewer is expected to somehow suspect her motives--like she's some sort of a Nazi plant. However, if you think about it, it just didn't make any sense. Why would the Nazis sink a ship and then toss a female spy among the debris and then have her marry the captain of a very insignificant merchant vessel?!?! Yet, for much of the film, you are expected to believe that she is a Nazi agent who has been sending reports to Nazi subs about the location of various ships--including, possibly, one she was on herself. Does this make any sense except on Bizarro World?! All this occurs in the first half of the film--how it's all resolved is something you'll need to see for yourself.Despite the bad casting and stupid plot, the film has some things going for it. Even miscast, I love Robinson and would watch him in anything (except porn....ewwww!!!). Second, if you turn off your brain and refuse to question anything, the film is entertaining. As far as wartime propaganda films go, however, it's at best average...at best.

Robinson easily holds our attention as Captain Bart Manson whose merchantman's whereabouts are betrayed by - whom? A combination of sea-adventure, spy-thriller and naive romance in which both the main performances and especially the photography are surely excellent and the action sequences sufficiently arresting not to tarnish the finish of the film as a whole. The central performance does not stretch (if "stretch" is the right word - he's never really over-stretched, is he?) Robinson as far as his Wolf Larson does (psychotically afloat in "The Sea-Wolf") but that really should not deter anyone from fully enjoying "Tampico", which has an excellent noirish atmosphere, particularly in the scenes set amongst colonnades and dark doorways in the last twenty minutes of the movie. Among the supporting roles, there is no weak or irritating contribution to spoil the force of the picture. Lynn Bari, in particular, is more than interesting in her work in this film, (the question of who her character really is and where she came from drives the plot; the audience must form its own opinion...)There are awkward moments in the directing, it has to be said, particularly earlier on, where the plot moves rather elliptically forward, but this is too small a criticism significantly to spoil the film.

Robinson's career as a leading man was on the downslide at this point and he was jerkily moving into starring support roles like his turn in DOUBLE INDEMNITY when he made this one, a handsome Fox programmer with noir lighting in which his role is a bit of a retread, combining the lovesick dope of TIGER SHARK, the mature sea captain and some World War Two intrigue. He's got good players with him too, with Lynn Bari and Victor MacLaglen.... and when it came to playing a role cleanly and honestly in the movie theater, Robinson's only competition was Spencer Tracy. And if they have film footage of either of them reading the telephone book, it will be worth seeing. So this one is worth your time. Which you should have known when you saw his name on the cast list.