BACKGROUND TO DANGER: of all the films in all the world they chose to rip-off "Casablanca."

First released in July 1943, BACKGROUND TO DANGER was a calculated - and some might say cynical - attempt by Warner Bros to replicate the enormous box office success of "Casablanca"a few months earlier.
Beyond a shift in locale from Vichy ruled French Morocco to officially neutral Turkey the studio made very little attempt to disguise the origins of this tale of wartime espionage, intrigue and betrayal. Both films open with the same studio voice intoning over a map of the action, and close with a plane, carrying some of the main characters, taking off for further adventures in support of the fight for freedom. And inbetween, "Casablanca" cast members Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre return in characteristically malevolent roles, supporting an American hero,  the exotic female object of his affections and their search for vital missing documents.
Unfortunately, where "Casablanca" had Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in those key roles, BACKGROUND TO DANGER is stuck with George Raft and Brenda Marshall. Raft was not as wooden as he's sometimes made out to be but his emotional range was limited. Whether he's being smacked about by Nazi thugs or making nice with a young lady, his expression and delivery are exactly the same. In his defence, Brenda Russell, as a Russian agent who may or may not be in the pay of the Nazis, exudes all the seductive charm you'd expect from a woman named Brenda so there's really not much incentive for Raft to change his expression.

But beyond the complete lack of chemistry between two deeply uncharismatic leading actors there's also the story which is rushed and hopelessly muddled. Even with the characters pausing frequently to deliver large blocks of expositional dialogue I still lost track of what everyone was worked up about and shortly afterwards stopped caring.
Greenstreet's bizarrely named Nazi heavy Colonel Robinson is nothing more than a retread of his Casper Gutman from "The Maltese Falcon" with a faint German accent and a pencil moustache. Director Raoul Walsh even replicates the shot-from-below-looking-up camera angles used by John Huston in that film to emphasise Greenstreet's girth.  
It's possible also to detect traces of the "Falcon's" Joel Cairo in Lorre's character, but the overwhelming sensation is of an actor who's bored and frustrated with a badly written part.
Even disregarding the inevitable comparisons to "Casablanca" there's enough rope here for BACKGROUND TO DANGER to hang itself with.Ill-advised and poorly executed, the film richly deserves its anonymity.