Search - Sirocco on DVD

MPAA Rating: NR Content Advisory: Suitable for Children Movie Release: 1951 DVD Release: 01/21/2003 Format: DVD - Black and White - Closed Captioned Edition: Restored/Remastered Audio Tracks: English Subtitles: English, French, Japanese, Korean, Spanish SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 38 mins Studio: Columbia TriStar Members Wishing: 4 Genres: Drama, Romantic Drama, Melodrama

In Sirocco Humphrey Bogart is cast as Harry Smith, a casino operator in 1925 Damascus. For a tidy profit, Smith runs guns to the Arab insurrectionists attempting to overthrow the French Protectorate. Chastised by French Colonel Feroud (Lee J. Cobb) for his lack of morals and political convictions, Smith merely sneers in agreement. Before long, he has become romantically involved with Feroud's mistress Violetta (Marta Toren), who hopes to use Harry as means of escape to Cairo. Only after being betrayed by the Arabs and roughed up by the French authorities does our "hero" begin to behave ethically -- but by then, it's too late. A weak attempt by Bogart's Santana Productions to duplicate the success of Casablanca. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Humphrey Bogart - Harry Smith
David Bond - Achmet
Märta Torén - Violette
Peter Brocco - Barber
Lee J. Cobb - Col. Feroud
Everett Sloane - Gen. LaSalle
Gerald Mohr - Maj. Leon
Edward Colmans - Col. Corville
Zero Mostel - Balukjian

This is a first-rate DVD of a movie that will probably be unfamiliar, even to many fans of Humphrey Bogart. Sirocco is hardly among the star's most famous films -- Bogart and Columbia Pictures were hoping that the movie's title and Middle Eastern setting would lure audiences with recollections of Casablanca, or perhaps that his portrayal of a gun runner would recall To Have and Have Not. Such was not the case, and without a script by Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein emulating the former movie or a director like Howard Hawks, who gave the latter movie its snap, any comparisons worked to Sirocco's disadvantage. And the movie's potential for mass popularity probably wasn't helped by Bogart's near-parody here of his own screen persona -- he is so dour in Sirocco that he makes Casablanca's Rick look like a barrel of laughs. What's more, the movie itself isn't much different from Bogart's character, a somber and atmospheric piece rather than an overtly exciting, exotic, or romantic work. Strangely enough, it is the movie's dark seriousness and maturity that makes it worth owning and watching today -- in contrast to Bogart's Warner Bros. features, Sirocco (along with most of his other Columbia work, which he essentially produced himself) isn't a romantic adventure story, but a serious drama, one that happens to be set in the 1920s Middle East. In an odd piece of irony (and a matter totally irrelevant to one's enjoyment of the movie), some of the central problems faced by the characters in Sirocco -- including "patriotic" nationalist bombers who are killing lots of innocent civilians -- are still issues in the region 50-plus years later.
The performances by Bogart and Lee J. Cobb in the principal leading roles help make this film work, and work well -- they quietly electrify the screen with their every nuance, Cobb dominating his scenes with astonishingly few words. Each actor seems to be in a competition to see who can convey the most information to the viewer and dominate the movie most thoroughly with the fewest movements and lines of dialogue, and each has the talent to pull it off. The transfer is as good as has been seen in any Bogart movie to date on DVD. The picture has been mastered so cleanly that the dot pattern in the tie that Zero Mostel's character is wearing in the prison scene ten minutes into the movie actually shimmers on the screen. One imagines that Columbia could not have found the need to strike too many prints of this movie over the ensuing decades since its release, a happy development in view of the apparent excellent condition of the negative -- every movie from 1951 ought to look this good, and the sound is also mastered at a healthy volume level, with a great deal of fidelity. The audio is balanced carefully so that even the softest dialogue is clear at a low volume setting on your monitor. The 28 chapters are generous for a 98-minute movie and nicely selected and named. The disc opens automatically on the main menu, which goes two layers deep with easy to understand selections, offering subtitles in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Korean, and Japanese. Sirocco comes to us with one interesting special feature, "The Bogart Collection," an unnarrated four-minute chronicle of Humphrey Bogart's history at Columbia Pictures, beginning with the loan-out by Warner Bros. for Sahara in 1942. Mostly a montage of lobby cards with musical accompaniment, it's not the most penetrating look at the man's career, but it is entertaining and the array of movies is more diverse than most viewers might expect to find. (However, some of the movies listed in the end credits as being available on DVD from Columbia TriStar, such as Knock On Any Door, were not actually available at the time of this DVD's release.) Additionally, there's a short selection of advertising art that's not all that special or a major selling point, but is worth having here as long as it was available. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide