The first thing that needs to be said is that, although this film is supposed to be set in Syria, there is no sirocco wind in Syria. A sirocco (or scirocco), the word coming from the ancient Greek sirokos, comes off the Sahara, and nothing from the Sahara blows as far as Syria. There is a similar strong wind in Syria, but it is called the shluq. Moving on, as there is so much going on in Syria at the moment, I thought I would get Humphrey Bogart's take on it all. This film is pure Hollywood hokum, set in 'war-torn Syria' in 1925. Needless to say, it is all made in a Hollywood studio and there does not appear to be a real Arab in the cast. Bogart plays a gun-runner who falls for beautiful, mysterious Marta Toren, but she is Lee J. Cobb's gal, and Cobb is the head of military intelligence in Damascus, because Syria is under French occupation. Cobb doesn't like Bogart at the best if times, and these are not the best of times. The people to whom Bogart is selling the arms are the locals, who are 'fighting for their freedom' because 'we want to run our own country'. Well, look what a mess they made of that! Still, 'freedom' sounds good, even if it does lead to the Assad family in the end. Just so that everyone understands the background, I should explain that Syria was part of the Ottoman Empire and was ruled by the Turks until 1918, upon whom the French were a significant improvement. Because the Turks sided with the Krauts in the First World War, their empire, like the Austro-Hungarian one, got dismembered and divided up between the victors. The British got Iraq and the French got Syria and a new country which came to be called Lebanon. These countries were then called 'protectorates'. In fact, somebody had to take them over, as the Turks were thrown out. And if it weren't for Humphrey Bogart, we might never have had the Assads, and the tens of thousands of Syrians massacred by father and son of that family might not have died. Or at least, that is the Hollywood view. This film is mildly entertaining and has three interesting stars in it, but I would not really rate it as 'three star'.
Review of Sirocco
