Review of Morocco (1930) by Rick R — 18 Jul 2010

Morocco (1930).

I never was much of a fan of Marlene Dietrich. I loved her in "Blue Angel" (1930) where she portrayed truly a femme fatale that men fell hard for. But, once Joef von Sternberg brought her to the states, she always played these wildly exotic women who, like Garbo, always get involved in these romantic triangles, and always leaves the rich suitor to chase after the handsome poor one.

This is the same for this movie, her first in the States. Cabaret singer, Amy Jolly (Dietrich) arrives in Morocco and bumps into Monsieur La Bessiere (Adolphe Menjou) who immediately falls in love with her. Bessiere is rich and knows all kinds of different people. However, he's a realist though and knows that Amy is a free spirit, who picks her own friends.

Tom Brown (Gary Cooper) is in the French Foreign Legion. Although his uniform is kind of scruffy, it's got a lot of medals on it. However, Tom has got a fatal weakness for the ladies. Perhaps his cavalier attitude with women is what got him in the Foreign Legion to begin with, where nobody asks you about your past. Maybe it's because Tom's always marching off from here to there, that he only deals with local hookers, or at least women of very easy virtue.

When Amy meets Tom in her club, the attraction is electric. And, although Tom plays it cool, he's as madly in love with Amy as she in him. He actually contemplates going AWOL and running away with Amy until he sees all of her other adoring fans and all of their flowers and champagne, and thinks better of it. It's better to stay with the girls you know, but surprisingly, Amy keeps showing up.