An American tourist, who served in Algeria during WW2, is mistaken for an American agent hired by the French government to recover its gold reserves that went missing in the Algerian desert during the war.
"The Man from Cairo", a Michaeldavid production for distribution by Lippert, with Ray Enright the only credited director on the film print, finds Mike Canelli, the man from Cairo, nosing around Algiers with mystery surrounding the people he meets and the things he does and has done to him, all deriving from the war-time theft of $100,000,000 in gold which lies somewhere in the adjacent desert. People representing many nationalities and reasons are also seeking the gold. It boils down to a battle between Canelli and the original looter aboard a speeding train.—Les Adams <[email protected]>
The French Authorities are completely clueless. Their agents keep getting murdered in Algeria trying to solve a great gold disappearance from WWII. So, they get an idea, hire an American P.I. who no one would suspect is working for the Authorities. Unfortunately, for the French, they can't tell one American from another. So, some other American ex-GI shows up in Algiers and meets a few beautiful women and gets beat up by every local in town. In the end, you guessed it, he ends up with the girl and finds the gold.
This movie is really well done for a B film. Raft gives a promising performance. He's cool and kinda American dull. But, the girls are beautiful and the French are typical. Not a lot of local color since everyone is from out of town and stays busy at the double cross. Not much to see in terms of local color. Film Noir , lots of shadows and grid patterns.
If you have a couple hours to kill, you could do worse than this film. I rate it a solid B-.
Also try the Orson Wells film's on YouTube. This is like a Bogart film has some of the color of Casablanca and To Have And Have Not. Of course, this is post-war , so less urgency. But if you enjoyed those two films, and want something similar and can stand for the lower production value, this is for you.
They are making me write 1500 words. You can stop reading here. I guess I was supposed to do a scene by scene review, but that would be incredibly boring. Just watch the film. Then you can redo my crummy review. Am I at 1500 words yet? Oh, don't make your date watch this one, she'll break up with you, or him or whatever non binary pronoun you want.
