Come wiz me to ze Casbah.
It was a catchphrase with legs!
Trouble is, Charles Boyer *never* said it.
Anyway, let's roll on with Algiers (1938) for the Sass Mouth Dames Film Club watch party.

Charles Boyer is nearly a modern-day minotaur stuck in a labyrinth. The psycho-sexual underpinning of the Greek myth sets the tone in Algiers. It's a total erotic fantasy for women.

Boyer is peerless when it comes to commitment and presence in a scene. He’s my number one swoon merchant because of the way he listens to women. Every cell in his body seems drawn to women as though magnetised.

He turns to women like a plant bends toward the sun.

David O Selznick wrote to producer Walter Wanger to suggest his new contract player, Ingrid Bergman, for the role of Gaby. Selznick gave Wanger the cost-saving idea of reshooting the original French picture Pepe Le Moko (1937) by director Julien Duvivier, starring Jean Gabin.

Charles Boyer was dissatisfied with Wanger’s decision to replicate the original scene-by-scene, which would force him into imitating Jean Gabin’s performance

Where Gabin was existential, Boyer was a wistful romantic.

Algiers shows us how suave Charles Boyer is right away in contrast with Stanley Fields, who plays Carlos, the muscle in Pepe’s gang. It reminds me of what Fritz Lang did in Liliom (1934) where Charles Boyer is a carnival barker who is quick-witted next to a dim strong-man.

Charles Boyer is lit and presented in the full glamour treatment usually used on women. Boyer’s beauty and elegance are the theme of the picture. Look at the way the light frames his eyes and mouth. His voice!

Boyer requested John Cromwell to direct. Cromwell was not very generous about Hedy Lamarr’s performance

Walter Wanger, the producer wanted Sylvia Sidney to play Ines. She told him to take a flying leap—no way would she play second fiddle to Hedy Lamarr. Sylvia was furious at the demotion, she said ‘my character was just another slum girl’ which was typecasting she resented.

Sigrid Gurie was cast as Inès. She made several films in Hollywood and was also noted as an artist. Her self-portrait is below.

Pepe tells Inès‘don’t grab—it’s unlucky’. What he really means is she’s too eager with her love

Hedy Lamarr was signed by Louis B Mayer for MGM. The studio agreed to loan her out for Wanger’s picture, because it was a way to test her with audiences without any direct risk to Metro. Algiers was her American debut. It made her a star overnight.

The cross-cut between Hedy’s mouth and Boyer’s eyes and the jewels is so erotic. More, please

Hedy Lamarr as Gaby is transparent about what she desires—sex, pleasure, jewels—and she doesn’t apologise for what she wants. She is an exquisite study of indifference.

Lamarr is as cold as the luminous pearls around her throat. She wears glamour like a protective shell as hard as the diamond bracelet she wears. She is bulletproof, untouchable, self-protective.

I always favour actors who underplay, who do less than more in front of the camera. Hedy Lamarr lets the camera come in close and discover her in the same way it did for Garbo. Hedy has the same detached relationship with being photographed. It makes her intoxicating.

When she recalled making Algiers in her smoking hot memoir, Lamarr wrote ‘I always had a reputation for being detached and cold at some times and temperamental at others during film making’.

John Howard Lawson and James M Cain (author of Mildred Pierce & Double Indemnity) adapted the script for the American production. They made several changes to placate censors. For example, in the original, both Gaby (Mireille Balin) and Ines (Line Noro) are kept women.

Hedy’s teeth double for the pearls—bright and luminous.

Lamarr and Boyer are perfect counterparts for the screen: dark and pale, languid, elegant.

At the wrap party, Hedy stayed in her dressing room alone, until Clark Gable stopped by to give her advice on the business and gave her a foot rub. Then a knock at the door. I enjoy knowing who the shit heels are.

Cinematographer James Wong Howe was known as ‘Low-key Howe’ for his mastery of low-key lighting.
He lit Hedy Lamarr from above to emphasise her cheekbones.
Wong received an Oscar nomination for his work shooting Algiers.

'The two of us behind the counter?'

Shop girls represent!

Rule number one for Depression-era women with ambition: Don't marry for fun.

Howe advised: ‘Study light. That’s what gives you the mood. You can almost feel the quality and texture of light. At night, walk the streets, or when you’re driving, study the lighting’.
‘Sometimes it’s not how much light you use to get an effect, it’s how little you use’.

When it premiered, Hedy told her date that if it flopped, she would be upset and he should deal with it. In the cinema, she knew right away that it was a good picture. She insisted later that her date tell her how beautiful she was ‘and talk slowly’.

Speaking directly to the reader, Hedy Lamarr advises women to revel in sex and ego until they burst.
Put that on a sampler.

The next day, after reading the rave reviews, Hedy marched into Mayer’s office to receive his praise. She didn’t even wait for permission. Mayer promised the full star build up for her next picture.

Gaby and Pepe are both obsessed with jewels but for different reasons. Pepe wants the jewels for money and power. For Gaby, the jewels bring auto erotic pleasure. The luscious gems are tied up with her libido, the same way they were for Marlene Dietrich in Desire (1936).

I also think about that bit from Richard Burton’s diary where he asks Elizabeth Taylor (in the next room) what she was doing and she called out ‘Playing with my jewels’. Ahem.
To wear something rare, flawless, beautiful is libidinous.

The idea that jewels give women the horn persists—it isn’t buried with classic film stars. Christopher Moltisanti, for example, probably had the best sex of his life after he gave Adriana La Cerva a three-carat diamond engagement ring.

Her desire for jewels is as natural as bread. Gaby’s appetite for baguette of wheat or diamond cannot bring shame.
Pepe is a swoon merchant, but Gaby will always want her heart’s desire more than she would allow herself to get carried away with one man.

Irene designed the costumes for Hedy Lamarr in sleek lines. Irene started out with a dress shop in Hollywood popular for budget prices with interesting designs. One day Dolores Del Rio bought an evening gown from Irene for $45 and spread the word about the shop among the stars.

Omar Kiam designed Sigrid Gurie’s costumes. He gained a reputation for period costumes as head designer for Goldwyn’s studio. He paid close attention to the historical accuracy of the smallest detail: ‘It all goes to create in subtle ways the atmosphere you’re after’

In this scene with Inspector Slimane, Boyer's blank white shirt without a tie makes him look like he's already a prisoner who has been taken into custody, tie confiscated.

Forgot this part about Carlos:
Tania: You know how it is with a man.
Inspector Slimane: Well, I can't say I do.
Tania: They seem to take to it naturally.
There are 40,000 people in the Casbah, a melting pot of the world, yet Tania quips that all men are the same—brutes.

'I wanted them'.
Hedy's delivery is so matter of fact, like she speaks of sunrise.

He's like a bear caught in a hole, surrounded by barking dogs.
*Forms rescue party*

You need this. It's on YouTube and iTunes and Spotify

Ingrid Bergman once went to see Boyer perform on the stage. Two women behind her remarked on his looks. They said he was short, paunchy, bald. Bergman turned and said just wait until he acts. He was phenomenal. The biddies made a hasty exit.

Hedy is a total sass mouth.
'Look at yourself and then look at me'.

'Until we marry I'll do as I please'.
Suck on that, Andre!

Hedy improvised a turban in the costume department one day during production. Every dame the world over had to have one after Algiers premiered.

Larry Swindell’s bio of Boyer quotes the actor ‘I do not know when I became so nice-looking as they all say. I suppose it was when I lost my hair and began experimenting with toupees. In silent films, I looked like a bandit who eats little children’.

Boyer didn’t need a toupee to get women. When he finally did go in for a hair transplant, it was for his son, Michael. Boyer wanted to look younger for his son.
Boyer was married to British actress Pat Paterson from 1934 until her death in 1978. He killed himself days later.

Jesus, Boyer glides down the stairs like a bird.

Slimane has hunted and waited for Pepe for ages and now he guilt trips Ines?
Cold.

Noooooooooooooooooooo

Gaby sulks.
Pepe loses the run of himself.
In a good woman's picture, the man should rather chew his leg off, or be shot in the back to have her.
This is the gold standard.

I hope you enjoyed two beautiful people and the jewels.

Join me next week for Joan Bennett in Scarlet Street (1945).

Also: I did not mention Bombshell (assuming anyone who follows me knows about it) but do yourself a solid if not.