Directed by: Josef von Sternberg
Written by: Jules Furthman
Starring: Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, Adolphe Menjou, Ullrich Haupt, Eve Southern
Rating: [2/5]
Long exposure to heat will eventually dry out any surface. An act of science that has its uses, but evidently it’s what transpires in the wildly stale love story at the center of Morocco. The hot Moroccan sun dries out any of the passion meant to be on display despite everything in the narrative indicating the opposite. One of the more confounding films with it known for its romance yet having nothing other than a dull story to work through, even while having two movie stars leading the way.
In Morocco, a French Foreign Legion group arrives, and the men get settled before their next assignment. While at a nightclub, one of the legionnaires, Tom (Gary Cooper), meets the leadliner and the woman who grabs all of the attention of attendees, Amy Jolly (Marlene Dietrich). She takes a liking to him even though she must continually fend off the affections of the rich La Bessière (Adolphe Menjou). As their affection for each other grows, Tom becomes embroiled in a scandal of his own making.
Carrying some strong star power, Morocco attempts to present a love story of two individuals amidst a difficult situation. An attempt that has good intentions but transpires in such an unengaging manner. A man with a reputation crosses paths with a glamorous cabaret singer all while a dangerous military campaign is happening around them. This should make for something at least remotely intriguing, but the final execution of it just does not pass muster, which is a shame given some of the components of the film that work.
When I say components, I mean a singular one, and that is Marlene Dietrich as Amy Jolly. Dietrich, ever the captivating performer, puts on quite a show with her character. Amy Jolly holds much of the fascination this story has to offer from her opening scene in one of her cabaret performances. She gets out there in a suit, performs her song, and through the performance shares a kiss with another woman. For a film made in 1930, this certainly took me by surprise. It sets the stage for a character worth following, seeing the choices before her. She can choose to love the man who has a checkered past in Tom or finally accept the affections of La Bessière and his riches. With one love comes easy, and the other would come from trying her hardest to muster something from within.
Dietrich plays this character so well in displaying the tragedy at the center for her, but the rest of the film around her comes at such a pedestrian pace and has a never-ending sluggishness to it, especially whenever Amy is not involved in a particular scene. A surprising revelation given her co-lead, Gary Cooper, just did not have in this film. I am a big fan of Gary Cooper, especially in his collaborations with Frank Capra, but he sure does get dealt a bad hand with portraying Tom Brown. On paper the man has plenty to attract interest through the scandal he creates for himself in having an affair with the wife of a commanding officer. That ultimately sets off the plot, but something that should contain plenty of juice just feels incredibly dry for the most part. Cooper could not elevate the material given, leaving Marlene Dietrich to do what she could to save this fledgling production.
By the time we reach the conclusion of Morocco, a grand gesture is made, an act of desperation drenched in the feeling of love that one character has for another. A moment was meant to provide an exclamation point to this whole experience, and it could not muster anything from me. Certainly not the desired effect of the film, but it ultimately summarizes the main issues that plague this entire ordeal. It seeks to tell the story of this grand romance between these individuals and how they have all of these barriers to something they feel is special. On paper, it works just fine, but the execution on screen leaves much to be desired.
