ACROSS THE PACIFIC (1942) Bogie assists the war effort

Up till the last 20 minutes or so, ACROSS THE PACIFIC is a first-rate war-spy picture. It's clever, fast-paced, loaded with witty dialogue, suspenseful, and romantic in a rough-and-tumble way. It also boasts much of the same stellar cast as THE MALTESE FALCON – Bogart, Astor, Greenstreet – and is helmed by the same fine director, John Huston. But oh that last awful 20 minutes, the sad result of hasty rewriting and reshooting when Pearl Harbor was suddenly attacked just prior to the film's release. The ending is dreadful and looks to have been cobbled together by an entirely different writer and director. It was.