SINGAPORE: they never had Paris

The film title may say SINGAPORE but deep down inside it dreams of being 'Casablanca.'
This 1947 potboiler from Universal is remarkable for one thing only - it's eerie similarity to the Bogart classic of five years earlier.

I say eerie because SINGAPORE is not a copy or a rip-off. It's its own story with many differences yet it's impossible to shake the feeling that you're watching something that if it were a person would be the third cousin of the person they remind you of.
Does that make any sense?
They're close but not so close that you'd make the connection right away.
It takes about 20 minutes or so.
Fred MacMurray is Rick Blaine, except here he's called Matt Gordon, and where Rick ran a gin joint in Casablanca Matt is a pearl smuggler returning to Singapore at the end of World War Two to recover his stash of hidden gems and search for Linda (Ava Gardner), the woman who mysteriously vanished from his life on the night the Japanese invaded the island state five years earlier.
Just like Ingrid Bergman's Ilsa Lund in 'Casablanca', Linda has an eminently hummable tune attached to her ('Temptation') but sadly there's no Sam to sing it for her. And Ava is no Bergman. She was not yet a bona fide star in 1947 and her screen persona was still a work in progress. It's easy to understand why Bogart would shoot Major Strasser for Bergman, but the depth of Matt's obsession for Linda is a little more puzzling.
Sure Ava's an attractive woman but her efforts to sound seductive by talking only in a low whisper are so unnatural that the allure is severely tempered. Maybe it's Ava's amazing restorative powers that hooked Matt. After she's kidnapped by local gang boss Mr Mauribus (the wonderful Thomas Gomez filling the Sydney Greenstreet role if not - quite - the 'Casablanca' fatman's XXL costume) he has his effeminate sidekick Sascha (George Lloyd channeling Peter Lorre minus the nasal whine) slap her around a bit to try and force her to reveal where Matt's hidden the pearls.Sascha puts some weight behind the smacks yet Ava's creamy complexion remains total unmarked. He's barely able to ruffle her hair.
Watching over all these illegal goings-on is local police chief Hewitt, played with wry detachment by Richard Haydn. He's no-where near as corrupt as 'Casablanca's' Captain Renault (in fact, he's not corrupt at all) and considerably less charming, but his adversarial relationship with Matt share's definite similarities with the one that produced 'Casablanca's' memorable last line.

And no, I haven't forgotten about Victor Laszlo. SINGAPORE boasts no Resistance leaders or heroes but there is the proud and insufferably dull Roland Culver as Michael, the older man now married to Linda. Just as with Victor and Ilsa, theirs is not a relationship based on equality or passion. He is more of a father figure than a husband, and what Linda feels for him is gratitude not love.  Consequently his decision to make the ultimate sacrifice is no big surprise although the twist in the tail definitely is.
However, shared DNA does not necessarily guarantee similar results. No sparks fly, no lessons are learned, and no timeless stories of love and sacrifice are told. SINGAPORE is a poor man's imitation of the real thing, completely lacking in the magic that's made 'Casablanca' one of the most beloved films of all time. Fred MacMurray had some great performances in him but Matt Gordon is not one of them. He's as bland, one dimensional and uninspiring as the cheap Hollywood studio sets standing in for Singapore, and he's saddled with unnecessary comic relief in the form of Porter Hall and Spring Byington as a couple of American rube tourists.
If you're feeling particularly generous you'll watch SINGAPORE once and never ever think of it again.