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This is a movie with a solid cast and a good story but for an adventure movie it really isn't always being adventurous and entertaining enough. I found this movie quite hard to watch at times, cine not always an awful lot good or interesting was happening and I just never really could get into this movie.

It isn't always the best told movie and with its style and pace the movie even comes across as a bit clumsy at times. This is a problem I often have with early John Huston movies. I'm pretty sure of it that the movie would had been a much better one had it been made later during Huston's career, when he had some more experience as a director and storyteller. I also think this is a sort of movie that would had worked out way better had it been done in color. It would had made the adventurous and entertaining aspect of the movie come across much stronger. It now instead is more of a dark movie, almost film-noir style like. Perhaps John Huston was practicing for his next movie "Key Largo", which also got released in the same year as this movie. I absolutely love basically all of Huston's film-noir but problem with him seemed that he tried to do everything as a film-noir, even when the movie was in a totally different genre.

But no, of course this movie remains far from an horrible movie. It still has a very fine concept in it, as well as a story that in itself has plenty of layers to it. You can watch and interpret this movie in many different ways, which perhaps also makes multiple viewings essential.

It above all things mostly also remains a real characters movie, in which the three main characters are the essentials. Their dynamic together is also great and is what mostly keeps this movie going. They are three totally different characters, which is the foremost reason why they work out so great together on film. Humphrey Bogart, Tim Holt and John Huston's own father Walter Huston play these roles. Both father and son also won an Oscar(s) for their contribution to this movie. Quite an unique thing.

Surprisingly enough not as great as expected but it still remains a more than good watch.

7/10

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About Frank Veenstra

Watches movies...writes about them...and that's it for now.
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