The recently-released DVD Candlelight in Algeria (1944) turns out to be a wonderful discovery -- an exciting British wartime adventure with a touch of noirishness, an appealing turn by James Mason, and an enjoyable leading lady whose career unfortunately never took off.

The picture injects a fictional yarn into a real event: the planning of the Allied invasion of North Africa which ultimately involved landings in Algiers, Casablanca and Oran in late 1942. Known as Operation Torch, the invasion was spearheaded by U.S. Army General Mark Clark, who, weeks before the assault, was secretly transported by submarine into the area for a top-secret meeting. The film takes place in the days leading up to that meeting, as Nazis in Algiers struggle to retrieve a camera that contains photos of the coastal meeting location. Also fighting to get the camera is Alan Thurston (James Mason), a British spy who has teamed up with an American woman, Susan Foster (Carla Lehman). The plentiful action takes place mostly in Algiers, which is believably conjured through imaginative art direction and lighting -- in fact, it's incredibly believable considering the film was shot entirely in England during the height of WWII. A flashback structure lends a hint of film noir, with Carla Lehman's voice almost hypnotic at times.

In many ways Candlelight in Algeria feels like a cinematic second cousin to Casablanca (1942), and it's doubtful that this is coincidence. It may not try for the intense romanticism of that classic, but like Casablanca it does have adventurous wartime intrigue in a north African city, with westerners and Nazis interacting under Vichy rule; Nazi officers who are sophisticated and roam around freely yet are somewhat cartoonish; a "Maj. Strasser"-like character played by Walter Rilla; an "Yvonne"-like character, a secondary love interest, played by Pamela Stirling, who here is actually named "Yvette"!!; and a Sydney Greenstreet-type character played by American actor MacDonald Parke, who not only resembles Greenstreet but is even costumed like the fat man.

Director George King mounts some cleverly staged scenes, as in a sequence involving vacuum cleaners that approaches Hitchcock in its playfulness, and he also tacks on a surprisingly delightful, very "meta" ending. King was a famous fellow in England, having produced and directed dozens of films since 1930. Many were "quota-quickies," including a 1936 film version of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, one of eight films he made with the popular British actor Tod Slaughter. But King was to direct only three more pictures before retiring. His first film as director, incidentally, had also been Laurence Olivier's first as actor: Too Many Crooks (1930).

James Mason was in the middle of a period of solid British thrillers like Hotel Reserve (1944) and The Seventh Veil (1945), and by the end of the decade he'd be in Hollywood, where he continued to dazzle audiences with his melancholy-on-the-surface-yet-tortured-underneath characterizations. He doesn't get as much screen time in Candlelight in Algeria as does his co-star Carla Lehman, but he is still most interesting to watch here.

As for Lehman, she acquits herself beautifully, showing no-nonsense spunk and style in a way that recalls Rosalind Russell or Ginger Rogers. Lehman was a Canadian actress who had a brief film career in England for about ten years starting in 1938, appearing in only a dozen movies before retiring into obscurity. It's too bad no one ever quite figured out what to do with her, for she shows real promise in Candlelight. (She co-starred with Mason one previous time, in Secret Mission [1942].)

Top-flight cinematographer Otto Heller had already shot 165 films, including many in his native Austria-Hungary, when he took on Candlelight in Algeria. Still to come was notable work in They Made Me a Fugitive (1947), The Queen of Spades (1949), The Crimson Pirate (1952), Peeping Tom (1960), Light in the Piazza (1962) and The Ipcress File (1965), among many others, but even here, on a quickie project like Candlelight, Heller found ways to elevate the film through imaginative lighting and camera effects.

VCI Entertainment has continued to release region-free DVDs of heretofore obscure British films. Along with Candlelight in Algeria, recent releases include Child in the House (1956), from notable director Cy Endfield, and Thunder in the City (1937), a British comedy starring Edward G. Robinson that boasts Robert Sherwood as one of its screenwriters and is directed by Marion Gering. It satirizes American and British idiosyncrasies in its story of a salesman (Robinson) who loses his job in New York due to his brash methods and travels to England to learn more "dignified" sales techniques. Robinson was eager to escape his tough guy roles at Warner Brothers and do some lighter fare, and while he is amusing, the film overall feels a little obvious and lacks a certain energy. Nonetheless, Nigel Bruce livens things up considerably when on screen, and British stalwarts Ralph Richardson and Constance Collier add to an interesting, eclectic cast. Leading lady Luli Deste was an Austrian actress who soon after this film went to Hollywood as yet another European import to be built into a star -- but stardom was not to be. She played in a handful of B films at Universal and Warner Brothers before calling it quits in 1941 after a Hopalong Cassidy picture. The best thing going for Thunder in the City are the several snappy montages, impressive as anything coming out of Warner Brothers on the other side of the pond at the time. The film is also notable as containing the first score by Miklos Rosza.

For more information about Candlelight in Algeria, visit VCI Entertainment. To order Candlelight in Algeria, go to TCM Shopping.

by Jeremy Arnold