Passage to Marseille
Titles against pictures of tramp steamer. Music includes Marseillaise and Marche Lorraine.Titlepage: "This is the story of a Free French air squadron. It is also the story of France. For a nation exists, not alone in terms of maps and boundaries, but in the hearts of men. To millions of Frenchmen, France has never surrendered. And today, she lives, immortal and defiant, in the spirit of the Free French Air Force, as it carries her war to the skies over the Rhineland."Current events.Title: "Somewhere in Germany." Bomber planes are flying. German anti-aircraft defences fire at them. The bombers' insignia is the cross of Lorraine. Bombs away. Target hit. On the way home, one bomber makes a detour over the town where Paula Matrac (Michèle Morgan) listens for them with her small son (Peter Miles). Bomber gunner Jean Matrac (Humphrey Bogart) drops a message: "To my wife. Till we meet again."Title: "Somewhere in England." Background music Hearts of Oak. War correspondent Manning (John Loder) is escorted by an RAF officer Lt Hastings (Mark Stevens) to the Free French air base. It looks like an ordinary farm. He is introduced to the liaison officer between the RAF and the Free French, Captain Freycinet (Claude Rains).
The airmen are sent on a mission. Manning exclaims, "Good Heavens! What is this? Planes being pulled out of barns? A haystack for a control tower?" as the farm is converted to an airfield, fences removed, etc. One of the airmen is Matrac. Freycinet goes to him. Matrac asks for permission to divert as it is his son's birthday. Freycinet gives it. The planes take off. Freycinet tells Manning that the planes are going on a pathfinding mission to Berlin. 2,000 bombers will attack. Manning asks about Matrac. Freycinet: "I could tell you a story about him I've never told to anyone. Would you care to hear it?"Flashback level 1. Freycinet's account to Manning.At the outbreak of war Freycinet takes passage on the Ville de Nancy, under Captain Malo (Victor Francen), bound for Marseilles with a cargo of nickel ore. There are three cabin passengers, including a French army officer, Major Duval (Sydney Greenstreet). They discuss the position of France in the war. At Panama they receive news of the fall of the Maginot Line.Two days out of Colon they pick up a small boat containing five men "pretty far gone." They are Matrac, Renault (Philip Dorn), Marius (Peter Lorre), Petit (George Tobias), and Garou (Helmut Dantine). Matrac says that they have been without food for twenty days, without water for five.Duval believes that they are fugitives from Devil's Island, 1,500 miles away. Captain Malo questions them. They claim to be French workers from Venezuela trying to get back to France to fight. Duval is sceptical.Freycinet warns the five men that Duval believes them to be escaped convicts. He himself also believes that, but is sympathetic. They confess that they have indeed escaped from Cayenne, but insist they only want to fight for France. They start to tell their stories. Renault says that Petit was a farmer whose land was confiscated and his protests led to his being transported for life to French Guiana.Flashback level 2a. Renault's account of Petit's story to Freycinet.French Guiana. Petit is among the convicts building a road, known by the convicts as Route Zero, because it will never exist. "Already it has been under construction for more than half a century, and for that there is exactly 16 miles to show. And for those 16 miles, there is one dead convict for every yard." Garou is there. "Formerly a mechanic and a professional racer of motor cars, he has killed his sweetheart during a lovers quarrel. In certain circles it was considered crude of him to have accomplished this end with an axe." A convict (Anatol Frikin) goes berserk and runs. He is shot down in the swamp. Alligators come.End of flashback level 2a. Return to level 1.Marius tells his own story. He was a safecracker and pickpocket. Renault tells his own story. He was a deserter in WW1. Ashamed, he went to Morocco to join the Foreign Legion, but was arrested.Flashback level 2b. Renault's account of his own story to Freycinet.At the Caserne Infanterie Coloniale (Colonial Infantry Barracks) Renault meets Grandpere (Vladimir Sokoloff) who has served his sentence and is allowed freedom within the colony, but is not allowed to leave. He catches and sells butterflies, saving the proceeds towards an escape. Sensing that they are patriots, he recruits Renault, Marius, Petit, and Garou to join his escape plan. Marius says they should recruit Matrac, a greater patriot than any of them. He says, "Matrac knows the ocean. He escaped once in a canoe from Venezuela." Renault says, "In 1938, during the Munich crisis . . ."Flashback level 3. Renault's account of Matrac's story to the convicts.Matrac is covering the Munich conference for La Verité Francaise, a newspaper that he publishes. He phones his story to his Paris office, where Paula takes it down. The resulting headline reads "Infamy at Munich. I accuse Daladier!" The paper sells out, but a gang of thugs storms the office and wrecks the presses. Police look on and do nothing.Matrac and Paula retreat to the country (Arly). He proposes and they marry. A café singer (Corinna Mura) sings Some day I'll Meet You Again.Paula sees a newspaper report that Matrac is wanted for murder of a newsman. She tries to persuade him to flee the country. At first he wants to go to trial to confront his accusers, but finally agrees.As they try to escape, Matrac is arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to 15 years in Guiana.End of flashback level 3. Return to level 2b.The escape plotters want to recruit Matrac but he is in solitary. Voice over by Renault: "Here on St Joseph's Isle is a building like nothing else in the world. One can go mad in this place. Nothing to see except blank walls. Nothing to think about except escape." Guards taunt Matrac. He retaliates and is beaten with a club. Marius contacts him.Matrac is released from solitary. The night of the escape another convict, Bijou (Frederic Brunn), overhears their plans and wants to join them. Voiceover by Renault: "We waited in the semi-darkness. Nine oclock. Nine-thirty. Five minutes to ten." They douse the only light and escape from the barrack room. When guards enter, Bijou is lying dead.As the escapees make their way through the jungle, one says, "Wheres Bijou? I dont see him." Matrac replies "He changed his mind." They make their way down stream by raft. At the coast, there is room for only five in the boat. Grandpere volunteers to stay and insists that they make a patriotic vow. They set sail.End of flashback level 2b. Return to level 1.Freycinet agrees to help the men.Captain Malo summons the crew and reads them a wireless message he has just received. "June 23. France, under the leadership of Marshal Petain, has signed an armistice with Germany." That night Captain Malo tells Freycinet that he is secretly altering course for England.Freycinet talks to Matrac, who says he wants to get back to Paula.Voiceover by Freycinet: "Imperceptibly we swung northward." "On the morning of June 26 I was awakened by the profound silence which had settled on the ship." Duval and his followers had taken control of the ship in order to take it on to Marseilles, believing that their duty is to support the Vichy government.A fight breaks out. The patriots overcome the Vichy supporters, but before they can stop him, the wireless operator radios their position to France. Petit overpowers him.A German bomber attacks the ship and causes much damage, but eventually Matrac shoots it down.Music: Marche Lorraine. Marius dies of wounds received in the attack. The German airmen have survived, and climb onto their floating aircraft. Matrac shoots them. Capt. Malo: "What are you doing? You cannot assassinate helpless men!" Matrac: "Look around you, Captain, and see who are the assassins."End of flashback level 1. Return to current events.Freycinet tells Manning that Matrac drops letters to his wife in France. Manning asks what became of the other escaped convicts. Freycinet points out Garou in the hangar welding and Petit working a crane. Freycinet tells Manning that Renault is the pilot of Matrac's plane.Planes return one by one, except V for Victor, which has been hit and is limping home on two engines. Renault tells Matrac that they cannot divert to his home town, but must fly straight back to base.Paula and her son wait. It is his birthday tea. They think they hear a plane, but none appears.At the UK airbase they wait. They hear a plane. V for Victor lands. Matrac is dead. Freycinet removes the message to Paula from his jacket.Matrac is given a military funeral. Freycinet reads the message that Matrac had written for his son. It is a stirring call to patriotic duty.THE END
murder, flashback