A YANK IN LIBYA

US, 1942, 67 minutes, Black-and-white.
H.B.Warner, Walter Woolf King, Joan Woodbury, Harry Parke, Duncan Renaldo, George J.Lewis, Wilhelm von Brincken.
Directed by Albert Herman.

This is one of many supporting features from the early 1940s, part of Hollywood support of the war effort. While this film was released some months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, this focus is on German supremacy and the expansion of the influence in North Africa.

It is not a particularly good film. The main difficulty is that many audiences found the leading man rather irritating and somewhat obnoxious, emphasis on Yank, the rather strutting American abroad, loud, dominating, presuming that he will win the war! He is played by Walter Woolf King.

It is H.B.Warner who has his name above the title is, playing the British Consul in Libya. As always, he is a measured presence, irritated by the American, aware of the German influence, aware of the rivalries amongst the sheiks and the tribes.

Also present is the comic Harry Parke, Parkyakarkus, seeming to be a seller of razorblades but ultimately revealed to be an undercover agent. He has some comic moments – but, they are a matter of taste. Then there are the two sheiks, one who could be loyal to the Allies, the other, ambitious, goaded on by the German agent in the city, getting the German support for his ambitions.

There is also a glamorous presence, Joan Woodbury, her brother who works with the consulate, the potential for a romance – though what she sees in the hero is something of a puzzle!

Some scenes of bombast, some scenes of corny humour, some scenes of the tribes riding into the town, an attempted assassination on the good sheikh, but the British able to command loyalty against the Germans – but it is only 1942 (and later generations know the outcome).