By Richard Harland Smith
Port Afrique
Brief Synopsis
Returning to his home in French Morocco, an ex-army flier finds his wife dead and suspects murder.
Cast & Crew
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Rudolph Maté
Director
Pier Angeli
Inez
Eugene Deckers
Colonel [Jacques] Moussac
Pat O'mera
Guitarist
James Hayter
Nino
Philip Carey
Rip Reardon
Film Details
Genre
Drama
Release Date
Oct
1956
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
Columbia Pictures Corp.; Coronado Productions, Ltd.
Distribution Company
Columbia Pictures Corp.
Country
Great Britain and United States
Location
London, England, Great Britain; Tangier,Morocco; Tangiers,Morocco
Screenplay Information
Based on the novel Port Afrique by Bernard Victor Dryer (New York, 1944).
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 32m
Sound
Mono
Color
Color (Technicolor)
Film Length
10 reels
Synopsis
Plantation owner Rip Reardon returns home to Morocco, his leg shattered from a war injury. Rip, who has kept his arrival secret from all but old friend Colonel Jacques Moussac, the chief of police of Port Afrique, explains to Moussac that he fears that his new wife Georgette will be repulsed by her now-handicapped husband. Moussac convinces Rip to go home to his wife, but on the way, Rip meets Pedro, a young pilot friend, who invites him for a drink. At Le Badinage nightclub, the club's porcine owner Nino offers to buy Rip's plantation. When Rip refuses his offer, Nino becomes truculent and Rip vehemently pushes him away. Upon reaching his house, Rip finds Georgette's dead body sprawled across the couch, a gun lying beside her on the floor. After Moussac and his assistant Abdul are summoned, Rip collapses in shock and the police begin to interrogate the servants. Among those present is Inez, a beautiful singer at Nino's club, who had been staying at Georgette's for the past few months. Since Inez once worked as a nurse, Moussac asks her to stay at the house to take care of the exhausted Rip. The murder weapon is assumed to have come from Rip's extensive gun collection, but when Moussac attempts to slip it back into the gun drawer, it does not fit into the slot. After declaring that Georgette's death was a suicide, Moussac goes to question artist Franz Vermes, the lover Georgette spurned six months earlier, but Franz sheds no light on the case. After Rip revives, Robert Blackton, his partner in the plantation, comes to visit with his wife Diane. When Robert begins to relate the plantation's financial woes, Rip, preoccupied by his wife's demise, interrupts and vows to find Georgette's murderer. The next day, Rip encounters Abdul in the street and offers him a bribe to see Moussac's files concerning Georgette's death. Although Abdul refuses the money, he gives Rip access to the dossier, which lists several meetings between Nino and Georgette in the past few weeks. When Rip questions Nino, Nino asserts that he was simply conferring with Georgette about selling the plantation. Soon after, Diane comes to visit Inez and suggests that she become romantically involved with Rip to divert his morbid thoughts. When Inez acts offended, Diane implies that she may have killed Georgette. At dusk, two Arab thugs follow Rip through the streets. After chasing away his pursuers, Rip reaches his courtyard and is shot at by an unseen assailant. Grabbing a rifle from his gun case, Rip fires back, sending the assailant scurrying into the woods for cover. When Inez returns home soon after, Rip suggests that she may have been the one trying to shoot him. Affronted, Inez threatens to leave, and Rip, realizing that he has insulted her, softens and asks her to stay. Inez then confides that Georgette became moody and agitated after learning that Rip was to be released from the hospital. The next morning, a cheerful Rip informs Inez that he plans to return to work and asks her to join him on a safari in search of a new stand of trees. When Rip discovers that Georgette's diamond necklace is missing, however, he accuses Inez of stealing it, sending Inez hurrying to Moussac's office to ask him for papers enabling her to leave the country. After Moussac refuses to issue her the proper documents, Inez takes refuge with the lecherous Nino. When Rip reports his assault to Moussac, the colonel admonishes him to stop taking the law into his own hands and then declares that Inez had nothing to do with Georgette's death and advises Rip to apologize to her. After Rip leaves, Moussac lists the whereabouts of all his suspects during the time of Rip's attack, and realizes that neither Robert nor Diane have alibis. At Le Badinage, Rip witnesses Nino presenting the missing necklace to Inez, and when Rip accuses him of theft, Nino produces the sales receipt, signed by Robert. Upon discovering that the Blacktons have abruptly left town, Rip hires Pedro's plane to scour the roads leading to the border in search of them. Moussac and Abdul follow in a jeep, hoping to reach the Blacktons before Rip. After spotting the Blacktons' camp, Rip orders Pedro to make a crash landing in the trees. Once the aircraft has landed, Rip leaves Pedro behind to make repairs while he continues on by himself. Upon reaching the camp, Rip holds the Blacktons at gunpoint and accuses Robert of stealing Georgette's necklace and then killing her. At that moment, Moussac arrives and announces that Diane killed Georgette and also hired Rip's assailants. Panicked, Diane pulls out the missing gun from Rip's collection and then confesses that she killed Georgette after discovering that Robert was planning to run away with her. As Diane rambles that Georgette gave the necklace to Robert to finance their disappearance, Abdul grabs the gun from Diane's hand and she breaks down in tears. Moussac then states that he knew of the affair all along, as did Inez. Finally believing in Inez's innocence, Rip returns to the club, packs Inez's suitcase and descends the stairs. As Inez sings a song, she turns to see Rip standing on the stairway and smiles at him. After Rip tells Inez that Diane murdered Georgette, they kiss.
Director
Rudolph Maté
Director
Cast
Pier Angeli
Inez
Eugene Deckers
Colonel [Jacques] Moussac
Pat O'mera
Guitarist
James Hayter
Nino
Philip Carey
Rip Reardon
Richard Molinas
Captain
Guy Du Monceau
Police driver
Dennis Price
Robert Blackton
Anthony Newley
Pedro
Jacques Cey
Waiter
Dorothy White
Berber girl
Denis Shaw
Grila
Maria Hanson
Georgette
Rachel Gurney
Diane Blackton
Guido Lorraine
Abdul
Andre Maranne
Police officer
Lorenza Colville
Bouala
Christopher Lee
Franz Vermes
Maureen Connell
Native model
Eric Lindsay
Sengalese boy
Auric Lorand
Sentry
Larry Taylor
First Arab
George Leech
Second Arab
Andrea Malandrinos
Gardener
Crew
Gus Acusti
Assistant Director
Angela Allen
Cont
Luis Araque
Composer
Malcolm Arnold
Music Composition
Wilkie Cooper
Director of Photography
John Cresswell
Screenwriter
R. L. M. Davidson
Production Manager
Gus Drisse
Camera Operator
Sash Fisher
Sound recordist
Jack Fishman
Composer
Kermit Goell
Composer
Eric Gray
Still Camera
Tom Howard
Photography Effects
Oscar Kinleiner
Composer
Muir Mathieson
Music Conductor
Paul Misraki
Composer
David Paltenghi
Choreography
Frank Partos
Screenwriter
Raymond Poulton
Editing
Paddy Roberts
Composer
David E. Rose
Executive Producer
Winston Ryder
Sound Editing
Paul Sheridan
Casting
Wilfred Shingleton
Art Director
John R. Sloan
Producer
Joan Smallwood
Hair dressing
Neville Smallwood
Makeup
J. B. Smith
Sound recordist
Juan N. Solorzano
Loc Manager
Julia Squire
Miss Pier Angelini's Costume Designer
Film Details
Genre
Drama
Release Date
Oct
1956
Premiere Information
not available
Production Company
Columbia Pictures Corp.; Coronado Productions, Ltd.
Distribution Company
Columbia Pictures Corp.
Country
Great Britain and United States
Location
London, England, Great Britain; Tangier,Morocco; Tangiers,Morocco
Screenplay Information
Based on the novel Port Afrique by Bernard Victor Dryer (New York, 1944).
Technical Specs
Duration
1h 32m
Sound
Mono
Color
Color (Technicolor)
Film Length
10 reels
Articles
Port Afrique -
This Morocco-set whodunit is based on the 1948 novel by Dr. Bernard Victor Dryer, whose career path was diverted temporarily by a 1937 playwriting scholarship to the Yale School of Drama, where he studied alongside fellow recipient Arthur Miller. John Garfield was the first to see the cinematic potential in Dryer's novel but the actor's sudden death in 1952 put the project into turnaround. Passed on to Columbia Pictures, Port Afrique (1956) got underway with Philip Carey in the Garfield role of a crippled American war hero who returns to his Moroccan plantation to find his wife has been murdered in his absence. Shot in Technicolor on location in Teutan and the port of Ceuta, Port Afrique (1956) was directed by Rudolph Maté, the acclaimed Hungarian cinematographer (The Passion of Joan of Arc, Stella Dallas, Gilda) who had a decade earlier turned to directing with such worthwhile titles as D.O.A. (1950) and When Worlds Collide (1951) to his credit. Filming interiors at Shepperton Studios in the United Kingdom, Maté was able to call upon a wealth of new British talent to fill out his supporting cast and Port Afrique benefits from the participation of rising stars Anthony Newley and Christopher Lee. Lee's dark complexion and sinister aspect had in earlier films restricted him to playing ethnics but all that would change when the independent Hammer Film Productions cast him as the creature in Curse of Frankenstein (1957) the following year.
By Richard Harland Smith
By Richard Harland Smith
Port Afrique -
This Morocco-set whodunit is based on the 1948 novel by Dr. Bernard Victor Dryer, whose career path was diverted temporarily by a 1937 playwriting scholarship to the Yale School of Drama, where he studied alongside fellow recipient Arthur Miller. John Garfield was the first to see the cinematic potential in Dryer's novel but the actor's sudden death in 1952 put the project into turnaround. Passed on to Columbia Pictures, Port Afrique (1956) got underway with Philip Carey in the Garfield role of a crippled American war hero who returns to his Moroccan plantation to find his wife has been murdered in his absence. Shot in Technicolor on location in Teutan and the port of Ceuta, Port Afrique (1956) was directed by Rudolph Maté, the acclaimed Hungarian cinematographer (The Passion of Joan of Arc, Stella Dallas, Gilda) who had a decade earlier turned to directing with such worthwhile titles as D.O.A. (1950) and When Worlds Collide (1951) to his credit. Filming interiors at Shepperton Studios in the United Kingdom, Maté was able to call upon a wealth of new British talent to fill out his supporting cast and Port Afrique benefits from the participation of rising stars Anthony Newley and Christopher Lee. Lee's dark complexion and sinister aspect had in earlier films restricted him to playing ethnics but all that would change when the independent Hammer Film Productions cast him as the creature in Curse of Frankenstein (1957) the following year.
By Richard Harland Smith
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The onscreen opening and closing cast credits differ in order. The closing credits are listed in order of appearance. According to a December 1954 Daily Variety news item, the rights to Bernard Dryer's novel were originally owned by John Garfield's production company, prior to the actor's death in 1952. Early Hollywood Reporter production charts place Kathryn Grayson in the cast, but she was replaced by Pier Angeli. According to the Hollywood Reporter production charts, location shooting was done in Tangier, Morocco, while interiors were filmed at the Shepperton Studios in London, England.
