Algiers

John Cromwell's 1938 film is the Hollywood remake of Julien Duvivier's 1937 Pépé le Moko and follows it almost scene for scene. Pepe Le Moko, a notorious thief who fled France, hides in the Casbah of Algiers, where the police cannot reach him because the labyrinth of the quarter protects him. A woman arriving from Paris awakens his homesickness and draws him out. The film was Hedy Lamarr's first major Hollywood role and made her a star. The Casbah, built on a studio lot, was designed as an orientalist fantasy, which is its most contested aspect today: not a real place but a set constructed to a Western audience's curiosity. Charles Boyer's performance carries the sense of confinement. Who it's for: viewers interested in classic Hollywood crime films and French remakes. Who it's not for: anyone troubled by orientalist conventions in the depiction of North Africa, or who has seen the original and will compare.