prepalaw Having personally known the protagonist in another setting, this movie has a strong grip of realism. No, I did not know Bogie, but worked closely for many years with the type of person he portrays in Sirocco. 60+ years after its making, Sirocco shows us how the world turns. Its emptiness; its senselessness; its ugliness; its cruelty - these are the things we do not want confront. We want to pretend that the characters in the movie could never exist. Yet, they and the undercurrents of war and chaos are the grist of modern day life. That is why you feel uncomfortable when the movie ends. The actions and reactions of the characters are too real. Comparisons with other movies, actors and scripts are attempts to dilute the caustic quality of Sirocco, where everyone loses. This is an excellent tutorial to learn about human behavior in no-win situations.

manuel-pestalozzi This is a most unusual movie for its time, and it is fascinating to read the comments on it here on the IMDb. Many viewers are apparently undecided what to make of Sirocco as it does not fit any of the known stereotypes. This is neither Algiers (1938) nor Casablanca (1942), there is no romance, you don't find anything exotic about the place in question (Damascus, Syria) and no great friendships are about to develop. It is basically a movie about people who are confronted with a drab and hopeless situation (messagewise I would compare it with The Sand Pebbles (1966)). It painfully reminds todays viewers of the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq (well, the Jasmine salesman bolts off before his handgranades go off in the cafe, the suicide bomber had not been invented yet). Western powers (they have a mandate from the League of Nations) are pitted against so called "patriots" (they have no mandate at all) in a bloody battle without a discernible cause. The Bogart character is an opportunist arms dealer and a coward to boot. At one time he really hits rock bottom in the Catacombs underneath the city as he tries to hide in his tattered Bogey-raincoat - one of the many great visual moments in this beautifully photographed nightmare of a movie with its superb set design.The main message of Sirocco is a depressing one: If things turn bad, the efforts of single individuals are of negligible effect. We have a disillusioned French officer (Lee J. Cobb who I have never seen better). He wants to prevent a planned execution of civilians as a retaliatory act after an ambush, not out of idealistic motives or with any hope but just because he is sick of all the killing. Like all the other characters he gets bogged down by the circumstances and in the end departs on a meeting with the "patriots" with the Bogart character's help. Everyone agrees that this action is meant to be a suicide. The officer even gets out of his uniform which heretofore had the function of a corset.Great sets and scenes abound here. Damascus is a place of eternal night - and we never get out of the place into the open. The Roman Catacombs seem to be inspired by Giovanni Piranesi's "carceri" drawings. There is a great scene in which the Bogart character buys a belly dancer's finger cymbals. Another scene begins with the focus on a visibly tender and juicy steak which the Bogart character starts cutting into. "He brings his own food", the waiter explains to other patrons who would like the same. What a better way to depict a war profiteer?As the lines above suggest, the storyline of Sirocco is pretty sprawling and the film is more of a situation than a story. That makes it only more realistic and instructive. Our time is right for anti-war movies of this kind. In can recommend it.

MartinHafer At the time this film was made, I am unsure exactly what American popular opinion was to this film or the occupation of Syria. On one hand, the French were imperialists and had no right to occupy Syria (as well as about 1/5 of the planet). On the other, the Syrian revolutionaries were at times mindless killers--much like parts of the Muslim world today. Because of this, the usual "good guy vs. bad guy" focus of most Hollywood films is gone, and to top if off, Humphrey Bogart plays a most amoral and unsympathetic leading man--making it a hard film to connect to. Interestingly enough, in light of recent problems in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East, this movie is once again a rather timely film.Lee J. Cobb plays, of all things, a French officer in occupied Syria in 1925. The country is rife with civil war and his commander is inclined to match terror with even greater terror. Cobb, on the other hand, is rather reasonable and wants to broker a negotiated peace--and sadly, he seems to be the only one in the film thinking this way. In so many ways, the star of this film was Cobb--as he was in more scenes and played a much more interesting character than Bogart. His acting was good, but he hardly seemed French--with no accent whatsoever.As for Bogart, the film is an obvious attempt to cash in on the success of CASABLANCA--with many similarities to the original. The setting looks an awful lot alike and the characters seem very similar as well. However, unlike "Rick" from CASABLANCA, down deep, he really is amoral and stands for nothing in SIROCCO. Plus, he just looks sad and old--with very little energy. As a result, caring for him is quite a chore. It's even worse for Bogie's love interest, Märta Torén. Not only was she amoral, but she was just plain nasty and selfish throughout the film--and yet, inexplicably, two men wanted her throughout the film! No lady is THAT beautiful! So overall, this is one of Bogart's poorer efforts of the latter portion of his career--due to a lackluster performance, a derivative script as well as characters (aside from Cobb) you could care less whether they lived or died.

danielj_old999 (Marta Toren to Bogie)....what a great line! I'm surprised it hasn't gone down in the lexicon of great movie quips...and it captures perfectly the paradoxical mystery of Bogie's eternal charm, as well as the mystery of how an essentially mediocre film can be redeemed by its own dry, sardonic charm (due largely to help from fine supporting players as much as from Bogie), some great B/W photography, and a persistently downbeat refusal to push any sort of patriotic agenda.(adding greatly to that charm quotient.) The postwar noir influence is in fine fettle here. So Bogie doesn't exactly have a great motivation for his final decision? He just changed his mind, that's all. Take it or leave it. "I've taken long chances before. Okay." What could be better than that? It's the way people act every day. Every good critical eye without a mote in it knows that this film is safely and securely within the universe of the best product Hollywood ever put out, a great, mordant, counterweight universe to the unwatchable sap they themselves were producing right alongside it. "Sirocco" is not even really that minor a star in that universe. Good, good, good.