Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Powerful

best movie i've ever seen.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The music is completely intrusive and over the top. Zappa would love this.

Entertaining Studio Wartime Production with Major Stars Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet, and Mary Astor Reunited with Director John Huston. Fresh off the Commercial and Critical Success of the "Maltese Falcon" (1941), this one looks Hurried and the Back Lot is Forever in the Foreground lending it a Stiff and Stagey look.It's got a Prefabricated Appearance throughout and the Thing comes off as Contrived and Unconvincing. It is Professional but wholly Predictable. The Film will Never get Mentioned as Bogart or Huston's Best as the Film is Basically just a Hurried A-List Product of it's Time.The Setting was Supposed to be Pearl Harbor but was Changed because it seemed too Close for Good Taste. There was Hope for a "Maltese Falcon" Sequel but the Studio Neglected to Get the Rights to the Characters. This Mediocrity was the Substitute. There are some Interesting Scenes and the Cast Works Well together, but the Movie, all things Considered, is just a Rush Job of Competence. Worth a Watch for the Participants and a Peek at WWII Movie Making just getting Started. The Rules were being Made Up as They Go and it Shows. Nowhere Near the Best for Anyone in Front of or Behind the Camera and Hardly even a Great Propaganda Piece. A Curio-so for Film Students and Historians.Note...Mary Astor's hairstyle is one of those curiosities and one wonders who thought it attractive.

Films made around this time always have an interesting behind the scenes story, and "Across the Pacific" from 1942 is no different.Rick Leland (Humphrey Bogart) is court-marshaled and booted out of the service; he then heads for Canada and attempts to enlist, but the Canadians know who he is and say they can't use him.Leland then leaves on a Japanese ship for the Orient, making no bones about the fact that his talents are for sale! He meets an attractive woman, Alberta Marlow (Mary Astor) and one Dr. Lorenz (Sidney Greenstreet). Lorenz loves the Japanese and its people, and speaks the language very well.You'll probably guess most of this.This is a Maltese Falcon template, with the exception of the absence of Peter Lorre. John Huston directed, but when we entered the war, he left to do documentary films for the government. Vincent Sherman started the film at a difficult moment in the action, and he asked Huston how a particular situation would be resolved. Huston said, "That's your problem!" and left.Originally this film had to do with stopping an attack on Pearl Harbor, but we all know what happened there, so the plot was changed to the Panama Canal.I liked this film - there is a lot of light repartee between Bogart and Astor, which is fun and makes the film less intense than it might have been. They worked very well together. And you really can't beat Sidney Greenstreet when it comes to being slimy.The majority of the Japanese in the movie were actually Chinese since most of the Japanese were interred, a black mark not often discussed, which is odd.Some exciting action and solid work by all the cast.

Good WW2 spy movie with the three leads and director from The Maltese Falcon. The plot is about Humphrey Bogart getting tangled up with baddie Sydney Greenstreet and love interest Mary Astor. Greenstreet's a Japanese sympathizer and is trying to recruit Bogie. Good luck with that, Gutman. Bogart is excellent playing a character he was totally at home playing: wisecracking tough guy ladies' man. Greenstreet is villainous as ever and perfect at it. Just as in Maltese Falcon, Mary Astor is playing a stunning beauty that makes heads turn. Just like in Maltese Falcon, she doesn't match the character description. Perhaps Huston had a bit of a crush. Otherwise I don't get her being cast in these types of parts at a time when the likes of Ingrid Bergman and Lana Turner were around. Still, despite that element of the casting being off, Astor does fine.This movie has an interesting backstory. It was originally to be about a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor but when that actually happened in real life, they changed it to Panama. They never changed the title, though, despite the movie taking place nowhere near the Pacific. Then John Huston got called to serve before filming was complete so Vincent Sherman had to step in. Oddly, it seems Huston was the only one who knew how the movie was supposed to end so Sherman had to make up the final fifteen minutes or so of the movie!