• Across the Pacific gets the gang back together from 1941’s The Maltese Falcon– Warners, John Huston, Bogart, Mary Aster, Sydney Greenstreet—this is actually Huston’s third film (a film between debut Falcon and this is a Bette Davis vehicle In This Our Life which I have not yet scene)
  • Huston left for the war before finishing—saying to the guy taking over (about the plot) essentially “you figure it out”- haha
  • Don Siegel does some of the montage work (also for Casablanca and a few others during this stretch)
  • Bogart’s character is named Rick— he’d make another Warners classic in 1942 where he played a character named Rick
  • The plot is about half-Maltese and half-Casablanca (incorporating the war effort- here the enemy is Japan- hence the name). Double espionage spy stuff- rewriting the history of Pearl Harbor and working that into the film
  • It is lightweight in achievement compared to both Maltese and Casablanca but still a solid effort when looked at on its own— a worthy entry for all involved. In particular, the scenes with Bogart and Astor (they have obvious chemistry) and Bogart verbally sparring with Sydney Greenstreet are tremendous. If there is anyone shrewd enough to call Bogart’s bluff it is Greenstreet. And this is part of a great run for Greentsreet debuting in The Maltese Falcon the year before (what a debut!) at age 62—he’d be in six archiveable films between 1941 and 1944 (including this, Maltese, and Casablanca).
  • Recommend- but not terribly close to the top 10 of 1942