Across the Pacific (1942)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

John Huston
(more)

Writers:

Richard Macaulay (screenplay)
Robert Carson (serial)

Release Date:

5 September 1942 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Drama | Romance | War

Plot:

Rick Leland makes no secret of the fact he has no loyalty to his home country after he is court-marshaled...

Plot Keywords:

Panama | Japanese | Passenger | Panama Canal | Saboteur

Cast

Humphrey Bogart	...	Rick Leland
Mary Astor	...	Alberta Marlow
Sydney Greenstreet	...	Dr. Lorenz
Charles Halton	...	A.V. Smith
Victor Sen Yung	...	Joe Totsuiko (as Sen Young)
Roland Got	...	Sugi
Lee Tung Foo	...	Sam Wing On
Frank Wilcox	...	Captain Morrison
Paul Stanton	...	Colonel Hart
Lester Matthews	...	Canadian Major
John Hamilton	...	Court-Martial President
Tom Stevenson	...	Unidentified Man
Roland Drew	...	Captain Harkness
Monte Blue	...	Dan Morton
Chester Gan	...	Captain Higoto
Richard Loo	...	First Officer Miyuma
Keye Luke	...	Steamship Office Clerk
Kam Tong	...	T. Oki
Spencer Chan	...	Chief Engineer Mitsuko
Rudy Robles	...	A Filipino Assassin
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Philip Ahn	...	Man in theatre (uncredited)
Dick Botiller	...	Waiter (uncredited)
Anthony Caruso	...	Taxi Driver (uncredited)
Gordon De Main	...	Dock official (uncredited)
Eddie Dew	...	Unidentified man (uncredited)
Charles Drake	...	Officer (uncredited)
Frank Faylen	...	Sidewalk toy vendor (uncredited)
Ruth Ford	...	Secretary (uncredited)
Paul Fung	...	Japanese radio operator (uncredited)
William Hopper	...	Orderly (uncredited)
Eddie Lee	...	Chinese hotel clerk (uncredited)
James B. Leong	...	Nura (uncredited)
Frank Mayo	...	Trial Judge Advocate (uncredited)
Will Morgan	...	Officer (uncredited)
Jack Mower	...	Major (uncredited)
Garland Smith	...	Officer (uncredited)
Beal Wong	...	Usher (uncredited)

Directed by
John Huston
Vincent Sherman		(final scenes) (uncredited)

Writing credits
Richard Macaulay		(screenplay)
Robert Carson		(serial)

Produced by
Jack Saper	....	producer
Jerry Wald	....	producer

Original Music by
Adolph Deutsch

Cinematography by
Arthur Edeson		(director of photography)

Film Editing by
Frank Magee

Casting by
Phil Friedman		(uncredited)

Art Direction by
Robert M. Haas		(as Robert Haas)
Hugh Reticker

Costume Design by
Milo Anderson		(gowns)

Makeup Department
Perc Westmore	....	makeup artist

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Lee Katz	....	assistant director (uncredited)

Sound Department
Everett A. Brown	....	sound

Special Effects by
Byron Haskin	....	special effects
Willard Van Enger	....	special effects

Stunts
Harvey Parry	....	stunts (uncredited)

Casting Department
Bill Tinsman	....	casting assistant (uncredited)

Music Department
Leo F. Forbstein	....	musical director
Heinz Roemheld	....	composer: additional music cues (uncredited)
Max Steiner	....	composer: additional music cues (uncredited)
Clifford Vaughan	....	composer: additional music cues (uncredited)
Clifford Vaughan	....	orchestrator (uncredited)

Other crew
Edward A. Blatt	....	dialogue director (as Edward Blatt)
Don Siegel	....	montages

Production Companies

• Warner Bros. Pictures

Distributors

• Warner Bros. Pictures (1942) (USA) (theatrical)
• MGM/UA Home Entertainment (2000) (USA) (VHS)
• Warner Home Video (2006) (USA) (DVD)

Also Known As:

Aloha Means Goodbye (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

97 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Japanese

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

Argentina:Atp | Australia:G | Canada:G (video rating) | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | USA:Approved (PCA #8248)

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

The last-minute screenplay change from Pearl Harbor to the Panama Canal was not implausible. Until the mid 1930s US military exercises concentrated on defending the Panama Canal from air, amphibious & small craft attack and were extensively covered by the press.

Goofs:

Factual errors: The background for the opening titles is a map of the Panama Canal. The orientation of the map and the compass is correct, but the labeling of the map is incorrect. In fact, the Atlantic end of the canal and the city of Colon are at the upper left (Northwest), and the Pacific end of the canal and Panama City are at the lower right (Southeast). The map is correctly labeled behind the closing credits.

Quotes:

Rick Leland: When you're slapped, you're gonna take it and like it.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Play It Again, Sam (1972)

The Mysterious Girl From Medicine Hat

Across the Pacific is minor league stuff in the careers of both John Huston and Humphrey Bogart. It's clearly made as a wartime propaganda film. It certainly doesn't compare to The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo, or The African Queen. It doesn't even have the redeeming feature of campiness that Beat the Devil has. The film is a product of the time.

That being said, it's certainly entertaining enough. On an action level it has more of it than The Maltese Falcon from which four cast members were retained. The four repeaters are Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sidney Greenstreet, and John Hamilton.

Bogart's not the existential private eye here. He's a cashiered army officer whose trial was really a fake. He's working undercover to find expose some Japanese American fifth columnists. His investigation takes him on a Japanese freighter that does carry passengers on the side. Two of those passengers are an Orientalist professor who teaches at the University of Manila, Sidney Greenstreet and a woman who claims to be from Medicine Hat, Mary Astor. Bogey spends the entire film trying to figure out not only what the dastardly scheme is, but just how Astor fits into it, because he's fallen for her.

World War II was the greatest time for employment for oriental players except Japanese ones. A goodly group is in this film, Kam Tong, Philip Ahn, Keye Luke and most of all Victor Sen Yung.

Until he played Hop Sing, Ben Cartwright's Chinese cook in Bonanza, Sen Yung was best known for being Charlie Chan's son under a few different Chans. But his role as Joe Tatsuito in this film was pretty good work also.

Sen Yung is a hip, jive talking Nisei who is supposed to be a deadly killer. Since he's already identified as such before we actually meet him, there is an aura of menace about Sen Yung even when he's at his friendliest.

Sidney Greenstreet as a scholar has become so immersed in Japanese culture and tradition that it has taken him right over the line into treason. Greenstreet is a talker like Casper Guttman in The Maltese Falcon, but in the end he can't walk the walk.

What was also happening in 1942 was that we were interning Japanese civilians that year. I don't think Victor Sen Yung being Chinese himself and knowing what the Japanese were doing in the home of his ancestors had any qualms about portraying a man on screen that seemed to be the living justification for such a policy. I've never heard of Across the Pacific being discussed specifically as a propaganda piece for that policy. Nor do I ever remember John Huston ever being questioned about it. Not that he had anything to do with the decision for internment, but it would have been nice to hear his feelings on the subject vis a vis Across the Pacific.

Huston didn't even stick around for the finish of Across the Pacific, it was completed under different hands. He went off to the service where he did some really fine documentaries that have stood the test of time.

Better than Across the Pacific has.