CAIRO

US, 1941. 90 minutes, Black and white.
Jeanette Mac Donald, Robert Young, Ethel Waters, Reginald Owen, Eduardo Cianelli, Lionel Atwill, Mona Barrie, Dennis Hoey, Dooley Wilson.
Directed by W. S. Van Dyke.

Cairo is a Jeanette Mac Donald vehicle. After a decade of films with Maurice Chevalier, Nelson Eddy and other singing stars, her reputation was well-established. There are elements of spoof in this film. She is seen as a Hollywood star, not unlike herself. Suddenly she is in Cairo during World War Two and suspected of being a spy. The comic elements come with Robert Young as the winner of a journalist competition in a small American town. After being marooned on a raft in the Mediterranean with a Nazi spy, he arrives in Cairo and finds a scoop discovering the star as well as the opportunity to cover aspects of World War Two, takes every wrong turn and cue in his attempt to get real spies. Young is adept at this kind of humorous comedy. He is a pleasant match will Jeanette Mac Donald.

The film has a strong star cast including Ethel Waters as Jeanette's assistant - and they both have the chance to sing at some length. Reginald Owen is the Nazi spy. Lionel Atwill is the head of the Nazis. Mona Barrie is also a spy who misleads Robert Young. Dennis Hoey (who appeared in the Australian film Uncivilised and was Inspector Lestrade in the Sherlock Holmes series) is a British officer and Dooley Wilson is a musician. The film was directed by W. S. Van Dyke, here credited as 'Major', who directed many of the Mac Donald- Eddy musicals as well as a number of action thrillers at MGM.

The film, though dated, has many of the elements of, for instance, the James Bond stories playing on audience expectations of spy stories and their continually being frustrated.

An oddball comedy - not typical of its time.