Tokyo Joe

Bogart plays Joe Barrett who, pre-WWII, ran a bar in Tokyo called “Tokyo Joe’s” in this not-very-good re-tread of Casablanca (1942) Joe left his wife, Trina (Florence Marly, a Czech-born actress whose birth name was Hana Smekalova and who specialized in espionage films during her brief Hollywood career), a White Russian exile and singer in his club who stayed behind and ended up working for the Japs. Post-war, Joe’s realized the error of his ways and is back to put everything back together again but that was then and this is now and things don’t go the way he planned.

Bogey is Bogey, as world-weary as he ever was, and complete with trenchcoat, but the film is B grade stuff, slacky-scripted and heavy on pro-Occupation propaganda with the devilish Nips out to cause trouble for the squeaky clean Yanks and the whole shebang directed without flair by Heisler. Replacing Casablanca's "As Time Goes By" the signature song is now an overworked “These Foolish Things”. Tokyo Joe is passable enough stuff for Bogey fans and insomniacs but that's it.

 

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