A cynical American who owns a gambling joint in a war-torn foreign land. A European beauty with sparkles in her eyes who captures that American's heart. A misunderstanding that severs the love affair, with words like "I waited for you but you never came" later thrown into a wounded-heart speech. A haunting song that continues to remind the guy of his old flame long after they've parted ways. A reunion of the lovers, only to find out she's now married to a blandly handsome political figure. A climax with gunfire, grimaces and tears.

By now, you're probably humming the refrain to "As Time Goes By," but if you think this review is about Casablanca, you'd be dead wrong, shweetheart.

Seven years after the release of Warner Brothers Studio's box office surprise—perhaps the most lucrative sleeper in movie history, Humphrey Bogart appeared in Columbia Pictures' Tokyo Joe, a cookie-cutter story of a love triangle complicated by foreign politics.

Joe Barrett, a retired lieutenant colonel, is every bit as brooding and cynical as Rick Blaine when he returns to Tokyo a few years after he helped bomb Japan into submission. He wants to come back to the bar he used to own with his judo-loving pal Ito (Teru Shimada). Unlike the stiff, stern Americans who now occupy the country, Joe treats the Japanese as equals, not as a conquered people who must submissively conform to Western authority. The occupation government, of course, distrusts Joe (but with his snarly cynicism, who wouldn't trust him?) and dogs his every step, frustrating his attempts to start an air freight service. Eventually, Joe falls in with a local shady character, Baron Kimura (Sessue Hayakawa), who blackmails him into running an illegal smuggling operation.

Meanwhile, Joe learns that the wife he'd abandoned a few months before the attack on Pearl Harbor and later thought was dead is alive and well in Tokyo. Trina (Florence Marly) is a European beauty with a sultry voice and sexy cheekbones, but possesses none of the charm that oozed from every pore of Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca. Trina's signature song is "These Foolish Things" and the words and melody have haunted Joe for years ("Oh, how the ghost of you clings/These foolish things remind me of you") and, like Rick, he hangs his head every time the tune is played.

When he finds out that Trina is still alive, he rushes to her house to rekindle their love, only to find she's long since divorced him and remarried the cool, boring Mark Landis (Alexander Knox), a mover and shaker in the rebuilding of Tokyo. This should come as no surprise to the movie-savvy audience. Neither should the fact that while Trina was in a prisoner of war camp she gave birth to a child Joe knew nothing about—Anya (Lora Lee Michel, as cute and precocious as Shirley Temple on a good day).

As in Casablanca, the crime-thriller and romance plots eventually converge. But don't hold your breath for a big payoff scene at a foggy airport in Tokyo Joe. The movie's third act is so predictable you'll have had time to compose two or three better endings in your head before the end credits roll.

If anything, Tokyo Joe is probably best remembered as a historical artifact reflecting the way Americans thought about Japan four years after Hiroshima. With another three years to go in the U.S. Occupation, audiences of 1949 would probably have felt they were watching something close to a newsreel. There's plenty of stock footage of post-war Tokyo, but it's painfully apparent that it's shot by a second unit with the principal actors nowhere in sight. Long shots of Joe walking through the streets of the city are obviously a Bogart double holding his hat low and half-turning his face; intercut shots of Bogie are filmed against a cheap-looking process screen.

Watching Tokyo Joe today, parts of the movie reek with condescension to the Japanese, right down to one of the characters frequently muttering "Ah, so." It's only a minor undercurrent of racism, but it's enough to distract 21st-century viewers from the story—proof that the plot isn't as fresh and engaging as it should, or could, be.

By this point in his career (Key Largo was just behind him and The African Queen was a couple of years ahead), Bogart's face was starting to show the effects of age and heavy smoking. Those bags under the eyes seemed to hang a little lower and that distinct voice rattled with a bit more gravel. Having a script that seemed all-too-familiar probably didn't help elevate his spirits, though he does the best he can with the material. Still, Joe is a creased, recycled version of a much-fresher Rick Blaine.

Columbia has just released Tokyo Joe on DVD and while it makes for an entertaining rainy-afternoon rental, only the most die-hard Bogie fans will want to buy it for their collection. The disc features a montage of lobby cards and posters for other late-career Bogie flicks, plus trailers for The Caine Mutiny, The Guns of Navarone and The Bridge on the River Kwai—though none for Tokyo Joe…a minor, but significant, detail that's about as unimaginative as the movie itself.



Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12