Rick Leland (Humphrey Bogart): I never saw anybody like you; you never have any clothes on.
Alberta Marlow (Mary Astor): Well if anyone heard you complaining about it they would put you in a psychopathic ward.
Did you ever hear of a novel that was written about 14 years before the catastrophic sinking of the Titanic that, in hindsight, seemed to foretell the disaster with eerie detail?
"Across the Pacific," which made its debut on this day in 1942, was kind of like that. Let me explain.
Originally "Across the Pacific" was intended to be about an attempt to thwart a Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. It was a work of fiction.
Then when the Japanese actually did bomb Pearl Harbor, the script was rewritten to make the location Panama instead. Now that wasn't as implausible as it might seem on the surface. Several years before the U.S. entered World War II, military exercises were focused on defending the Panama Canal, and those activities received considerable attention in the press.
But the first two–thirds of the movie emphasized the hot–and–cold romance between Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor, fellow passengers aboard a Japanese ship.
And the script revision actually put all the action in the Atlantic and Caribbean. Never really got close to the Pacific.
I guess "Across the Pacific" was the original title — and, in spite of all the meticulous changes being made to the script, no one thought to change the title.
The script revision wasn't that meticulous, though. Director John Huston apparently had worked out an ending for the movie, but he was called up for military service, leaving it to his replacement, Vincent Sherman, to come up with an ending on his own.
Huston, by the way, thought Sherman's finish "lacked credibility," according to his 1980 autobiography "An Open Book." Maybe he should have shared his vision for the conclusion with Sherman before he shipped out.
At the very least he should have told Sherman how to resolve the predicament in which his filmmaking had left Bogart. If you watch the movie, I think you will agree that Bogart would have had to be Harry Houdini — or Indiana Jones — to get out of that one.
Yet somehow he did.
There were other problems with "Across the Pacific." For one, I have always had an issue with the casting of Astor as the female lead. Now, she was talented. I don't mean to imply that she wasn't. But I thought the role called for more of a beauty. Ingrid Bergman comes to mind. She combined great talent with great beauty.
Would that have invited comparison to Bogart and Bergman's classic "Casablanca"?
Perhaps in hindsight. But "Casablanca" wouldn't have been on the minds of audiences in September 1942 because it wasn't showing on U.S. movie screens until two months later.
The actual cast did invite comparisons to "The Maltese Falcon," especially with Sydney Greenstreet reunited with Bogart and Astor. Greenstreet played an even more villainous character than he played in "The Maltese Falcon."
He showed up in "Casablanca," too.
By the way, Bogart, Astor and Greenstreet reprised their roles in a radio version of the story that was aired a few months later.
