Morocco (1930)

Director: Josef von Sternberg                       Writer: Jules Furthman
Film Score: Karl Hajos                                 Cinematography: Lee Games
Starring: Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, Adolphe Menjou and Francis McDonald

This is an interesting attempt at a film, part Algiers, part The Blue Angel but without the personality or interest of either. Morocco is one of Marlene Dietrich’s early American films, and while she’s not nearly as exotic looking as Garbo of the same period that’s to her advantage as she’s far more inviting. Where Garbo is the aloof sphinx you admire from afar, Dietrich is a gal you want to pal around with. The story, if you can call it that, is very slow in getting going, and the delivery by Dietrich is so stilted it seems at times as if she can’t remember what to say or how to pronounce it until it all comes out in a couple of staccato syllables. But it seems as if the rest of the actors have the same problem. It’s the oddest delivery of a screenplay I’ve ever witnessed and one that is decidedly unpleasant.

The film begins with Adolphe Menjou and Dietrich on the way across the Mediterranean to Morocco. She is apparently some kind of performer, as the officer tells Menjou that she only has a one-way ticket. When the scene shifts to Morocco, Gary Cooper is a French Foreign Legion soldier who seems bored with it all. He has women everywhere pulling down their face coverings and trying to get his attention. At the cabaret that night Dietrich comes on stage in a full man’s tuxedo, complete with top hat, and entertains the crowd with a couple of songs. What evolves is sort of a love triangle, if not a quintet. Cooper has been sleeping with the Adjutant’s wife. But when he sees Dietrich he tosses her aside. When she tries to have Cooper assassinated in revenge, he kills the Moroccans and is put in jail. Dietrich is beside herself because she has fallen for him too, but the only way to get him out is for Menjou to pull strings, which he does, but the price is Cooper must be transferred to another town and she must transfer her own affections to Menjou.

Ultimately, it’s a let down. With all of the star power involved, not only the actors but director Josef von Sternberg, one would expect a more artistic production. But even considering the limitations of the time, the film has little energy and even less drama. The dialog is sparse, and when it comes--from all of the actors--it is in short bursts and incredibly banal. The exotic local is clearly on the studio set, but later films like Algiers and Casablanca had the same limitations and yet had a lot more atmosphere. It’s almost maddening to watch because the pacing makes no sense, all fits and starts and completely unable to find any real dramatic momentum. Morocco is one of those early thirties films that, despite all of the positive things it had going for it, is simply an artistic failure.