1938 – Charles Boyer
Algiers
I’ll be honest. I’m not exactly sure how I feel about Charles Boyer’s performance in this film. On the one hand, he was good, though I wouldn’t call him great. On the other, I’ve seen him play the exact same character before in other films. On the one hand, he seemed perfectly appropriate for the part. On the other, I got the vague sense that he was trying too hard to be… something, and I couldn’t pinpoint what that was. The performance didn’t feel labored, but it also didn’t feel at ease.
He played a notorious thief called Pepe le Moko, who is trapped like a prisoner in the Casbah, the seedy, criminal-laden quarter of Algiers. He wants to escape and return to his beloved France. But both the Algerian and French police are waiting for him to come out of hiding so they can capture him. The way Boyer played Pepe was mostly dark and brooding. There were a few scenes where he showed a different side, like his love scenes with Hedy Lamarr, who, incidentally, also turned in a performance that felt a little forced.
Now, to his credit, he didn’t let his own native French accent get in his way. In fact, it was a distinct advantage within the narrative. And I never had any problem understanding him. His accent was thick, but it was appropriate. At one point, he even had a conversation with Gaby about places in Paris that he loved, and it was nice to hear him speak in his own language, if only briefly.
As I reflect on the film, I’m trying to pick a scene that stood out to me as great, something that might justify his Oscar nomination, but nothing really comes to mind. As a criminal and a thug, he was never overtly intimidating. As a lover, he was only mildly romantic, though there was a darkness and a bit of danger in his pursuit of Gaby, which I kind of liked. And then there was that weird scene where he breaks out into song because he’s in love. Boy, that scene came out of nowhere and didn’t fit the rest of the movie in any way. He starts singing from his balcony, everyone stops to listen and dance a little, and you hear musicians accompanying him. And you know it was “in story” because he asks someone, if they liked his singing. It made no sense. This was not a musical, but there he was, singing???