Watch Morocco For Free

One of my all time favorites.

Best movie ever!

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

No discernible plot. Cooper smirking his was through his role. Dietrich showing just a hint of her allure. Those eyes. Those legs. As Hedley Lamarr says to Lily Von Schtupp in Blazing Saddles, ''Lily, Lily, Lily, oh legs, oh Lily." Dietrich even utters the line, ''When will I see you again,'' after one embrace with Cooper. Mel Brooks was even better at stealing old movie clips and re-making them for comedy than Quentin Tarantino is at stealing things for his violence p0rn. Adolph Menjou was a treat, as usual but he doesn't get enough screen time compared to the wooden Cooper. All considered this movie amounts to nothing, proves nothing, advances nothing technically, leaves no impression. Merely a historical footnote because it brought Dietrich to America.

Marlene Dietrich's first American film (at this stage, her Paramount contract stipulated that only Sternberg could direct her!) remains, despite its understandably faded air after 8 decades, one of her greatest (in his hefty tome "Have You Seen…?", eminent but provocative movie critic David Thomson called it "one of the most influential films Hollywood ever made"!). She proved an instant hit, even copping a personal Oscar nod – the only time the legendary actress would be so honored in a long and illustrious career! For the record, MOROCCO was also nominated for Sternberg's sturdy direction and Lee Garmes' gleaming cinematography (most notable when shooting through the exposed roof-racks, in the narrow passageways of the Casbah-like town and tracking along the seemingly endless line of departing legionnaires bidding goodbye to their women).In hindsight, it is interesting that the first 3 Sternberg/Dietrich pictures to be released in America were made within the framework of action-oriented genres – a Foreign Legion/desert adventure here (not that we really get any of the expected skirmishes along the way!), WWI espionage (in DISHONORED {1931}) and a train-set, multi-character revolutionary epic (in SHANGHAI EXPRESS {1932}). As with many of the films in the series, too, she forms part of a love triangle with her co-stars which, in this case, offered possibly the best pairing of all: Gary Cooper (top-billed, in a role originally intended for either John Gilbert or Fredric March, as an unruly young legionnaire – in fact, he is also involved with a number of other women throughout, including the wife of his commanding officer!) and Adolphe Menjou (older but typically suave and wealthy to boot, he naturally extends her a marriage proposal she very nearly accepts!).Dietrich arrives in Morocco (for the usual specialized spot at a cabaret – the film, in fact, was based on a play bearing her character's name i.e. Amy Jolly: brought to Sternberg's attention by Dietrich herself, it was a decidedly more explicit prospect, accentuating the lesbianism angle while also incorporating the copious intake of cocaine!) on the same boat as Menjou, who takes an immediate interest in her; she is not of the same opinion, however, and promptly rips and throws away his calling-card! The star performs two numbers in French (showcasing her Cosmopolitan identity) but also "What Am I Bid?", which she sings in drag (sporting top hat and tails!) and, making her way round the audience as she does so, eventually plants a controversial kiss on a blushing local girl's lips! One night after visiting Dietrich at her place, an assassination attempt is made on Cooper's life, which she ends up witnessing; in the ensuing military hearing, it is obvious the hero's superior intends making him pay for the dalliance with his wife, but his plan of sending Cooper on a suicide mission rebounds on himself as, accompanying him to make sure he does not return, it is the officer who succumbs to an enemy bullet!The film provides a rare display of the Surrealist concept of amour fou in Hollywood's Golden Age (such another was Henry Hathaway's PETER IBBETSON {1935}, also with Cooper, which would actually be championed by cinema's foremost exponent of the form, and my own favorite auteur, Luis Bunuel!): Dietrich compulsively abandons Menjou, halfway through an ennui-ridden society dinner, upon hearing the arriving legionnaires; accompanied by her now-resigned protector, she frantically searches for the reportedly wounded Cooper (but is unable to track him down, having been made a prisoner in the interim); ultimately, the female protagonist follows her true love – along with other similarly devoted women, known as "camp followers", and whose apparently irrational act she had earlier found perplexing – on his next patrol (making for a prolonged final shot, which is among the most memorable of the early Talkie era). By the way, on the strength of this (which I had watched twice on Italian TV over the years since, bafflingly, it was never issued on VHS in my neck of the woods!), I acquired the reputedly routine George Raft vehicle OUTPOST IN MOROCCO (1949; a film I do recall missing out on when shown on local TV in the 1990s).

Marlene Dietrich made her American debut in "Morocco," directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Gary Cooper and Adolphe Menjou. Dietrich plays a sexy cabaret performer who has two men in love with her, Cooper, a member of the foreign legion, and Menjou, a wealthy man who can give her the world.This is an early talkie so the rhythm is a bit off and it moves somewhat slowly. Dietrich is beautiful and quite sexy, and she is equaled by the tall, gorgeous Cooper, about 30 years old here and a true hunk if there ever was one.The end of the film is absolutely stunning and worth the whole film. The restless beating of the drums is really something, too.

Why should we watch now this eighty years old film, made in black and white, slow moving forward, with only latent developing story? I'll try to answer this question. The thrill of "Morocco" lies in the characters of the protagonists, played by unforgettable Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper. I believe, Voltaire said once that the most beautiful thing in the world is a human face, and it seems to be true, when you watch their faces.The sparkles between a legionnaire Tom Brown (Cooper) and a singer Amy Jolly (Dietrich) are immense, it's love from the first sight, we see this on his face and we see it in her handling him the key from her flat, just in the first evening.While the rich gentleman Le Bessiere (Adolphe Menjou) is at the beginning just curious about her and her further fate, and only later gets really involved with her, the young legionnaire seems to be blown off by her first appearance on stage. Amy Jolly has certainly no "stage fright", she knows very well how to play audience, and doesn't need any advice from the owner of the place. She attracts attention by wearing her extravagant costume and then by taking a flower from a woman's hair and kissing her (rather teaching her manners than anything else). And then suddenly this flower will be given away: to Tom Brown. So we see the very beginning of the romance, and we see the reactions of the audience.The thrill is in the nuances, in the play of shadows and light. Perhaps, the pauses in the dialogs are as meaningful as the words: when Tom Brown says: "Nothing... yet!", we know already what kind of fellow he is, or even more famous example: Amy Jolly says after a long pause: "I'll be back... wait for me." It's more impressive than those dozen words she could fill in this empty time space. But the intensity of the scene would be lost! I must also stress the brilliance of the love dialogs in "Morocco". For instance it's a wonderful line, when Amy Jolly says to Tom Brown: "You should go now... I'm beginning to like you." It's a deeper insight into a woman's soul.About the rich man: somehow he seems rather playing games with Amy Jolly, so he provokes her by saying about the women following the legion into the desert that they love their men. I guess the meaning of his words was that she, Amy, does not love anyone really, and then she belongs to him, into his world. If she does, she should make her choice.Cooper gives a genius imitation of the way Tom Brown speaks: he speaks like a soldier, in a hacked, simple, straight forward manner.At the end of the film Amy Jolly takes off her shoes to follow her man; maybe this scene has influenced the other film makers ("The red shoes" (1948) and "The river of no return" (1954)).What is also interesting about "Morocco" is a multilingual surrounding: we hear English, French, German, Arabic and Spanish.In my opinion it's the best not only of Dietrich, but also of the young Cooper, because only after seeing "Morocco" I start to believe in him as a charming Casanova from Hollywood.