Passage to Marseille

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Passage to Marseille
Spanish film poster for Passage to Marseille
Directed by	Michael Curtiz
Produced by	Hal B. Wallis Jack L. Warner (executive producer)
Written by	Casey Robinson Jack Moffitt Sans patrie by Charles Nordhoff(novel) James Norman Hall(novel)
Starring	Humphrey Bogart Michèle Morgan Claude Rains Sydney Greenstreet Peter Lorre Helmut Dantine
Music by	Max Steiner
Cinematography	James Wong Howe
Editing by	Owen Marks
Distributed by	Warner Brothers
Release date(s)	16 February 1944
Running time	109 min
Country	USA
Language	English
IMDb profile

Passage to Marseille is a 1944 war film made by Warner Brothers, directed by Michael Curtiz and produced by Hal B. Wallis with Jack L. Warner as executive producer. The screenplay was by Casey Robinson and Jack Moffitt from the novel Sans patrie by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. The music score was by Max Steiner and the cinematography was by James Wong Howe.

The film reunited much of the cast of Casablanca (1942), also directed by Curtiz, including Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Helmut Dantine. Michèle Morgan (who had been the original choice for Casablanca), Victor Francen, Philip Dorn and George Tobias are also featured.

[edit] Plot

One of the only films to employ a flashback within a flashback within a flashback. The film opens in England during World War II. Captain Freycinet, a French officer (Claude Rains), is telling a story of the French pilots who serve at a particular airbase. This opens into the first flashback onboard the tramp steamer Le Nancy just before the German invasion of France. On board the ship, escaped convicts tell the officer the story of their escape from their prison island which begins the next flashback. During that flashback, the convicts tell the story of Matrac (Humphrey Bogart) in pre-war France which starts the next flashback.