Have wisecrack, will travel

BACKGROUND TO DANGER is forgotten today, but it did pretty good business in 1943, grossing $3,100,000. One of at least 37 features that year that dealt with one aspect or another of WW2 (not counting serials and documentaries), this one had a tough Yank (George Raft) sorting loyalties in non-aligned Turkey, shrewdly sitting this one out after the debacle of WW1.  Tight-lipped (and pretty colorless) George has to work with the Soviet spy team of Brenda Marshall and Peter Lorre against the Nazi swine led by Sydney Greenstreet.

Jolly employee of Adolph

Directed by Raoul Walsh, it clips along for 80 minutes, trying to create a viable atmosphere with a slim budget (cue those miniature trains) and generate some exotica ala Casablanca (which Raft turned down–whoops).

Sly servant of Stalin

With Osa Massen, Turhan Bey and Kurt Katch. W.R. Burnett wrote the script off a novel by Eric Ambler. William Faulkner pitched in, uncredited.