Quite a few spy thrillers emanated during World War II, as was "Background to Danger," filmed at war's height. The opening narrative gives us the background. It is 1942, and the focus is on neutral Turkey. For the Germans are in Bulgaria and are still pushing eastward. The Russians are in the Caucasus and the British occupy French Syria. The neutrality of Turkey, in the center of the action, keeps the combatants apart. Will Turkey enter the war and tip the balance of power? So Turkey's capital, Ankara, is flooded with spies, agents, and provocateurs. On one street, "the street of 1,001 plots," lie all together the embassies of the US, England, Italy and Germany.At film's beginning an unsuccessful attempt is made on the life of German ambassador Von Papen. The Russians are suspected. But back in Berlin, on the Wilhelmstrasse, Nazi Colonel Robinson (Robinson? = Sydney Greenstreet) is discussing matters with the would-be assassin Rudick, who has just flown six hours directly in from Ankara. Robinson is not happy that Rudick has failed in his mission to kill Von Papen and thus blame the Russians. The Nazis hope that inciting the Turkish people will get them to pressure the government to join the Axis Powers. Why the plot to kill Von Papen? The reason is that German threats, bribes, and assassinations failed to get results. Ah, those nasty Nazis! While Robinson speaks he drags his finger along the wall map, specifically on the Middle East. His finger stops at Aleppo in northern Syria, not far from the Turkish border. Now the camera zooms in to the train station in Aleppo. American machine salesman Joe Barton (George Raft) and mysterious Ana Remzi (Osa Massen) board the train and share the same compartment. The train heads for Ankara where Joe and Ana depart for different hotel locations. Ana had given gum-chewing Joe several thousand lira to hold for her, the last of her family fortune. She said that she was escaping persecution. As an American, Joe cannot be searched. When he opens the envelope after he is alone, Joe finds only maps, which appear to be invasion routes. He hides the documents inside his hotel room. Ana is soon killed in a seedy hotel by a sinister-looking man named Igor Rashenko, who had previously stalked her on the train (although we do not know the exact reason why she was murdered). Meanwhile Colonel Robinson, back from Berlin, and three associates posing as Turkish police arrest Joe and take him to a remote hideaway. In the building cellar Joe gets worked over, but will not reveal the whereabouts of the envelope. By the way, since they are fake maps (as we learn), why does Col. Robinson need them? Can't the Germans just duplicate new ones? (plot hole #1) Suddenly Joe gets rescued by armed Nikolai Zaleshoff (Peter Lorre) and his sister Tamara (Brenda Marshall). How Nikolai unexpectedly pops out of nowhere into the cellar is not explained (plot hole #2). It turns out that Nikolai and Tamara are Russian agents, and even though the Soviet Union is an American ally, Joe does not trust the two. Several events transpire to cement Joe's thoughts, and with so many spies afoot, nobody trusts anybody. But the shadowy Nikolai does tell Joe that Ana Remzi's real name was Baranovich, and was really a German agent. In the meantime bodies begin to pile up. Robinson wants the American "meddler" put out of the way for good. Along the way we have already learned that Joe is really an American spy.The conclusion begins with an exciting car chase. Will the bad guys catch up to Joe and thus prevent him from thwarting the pro-Nazi sympathizing folks who operate the newspaper presses that will print out false and incriminating information against the Russians? It is hard to believe that one man can do so much damage against all the folks in the newspaper building. And even if he succeeds, can't the presses be repaired? And why is everything so time-sensitive in the first place? (plot hole #s 3 and 4). Towards the end the movie hints that the Germans plan on invading Turkey (false, never happened).While the plot holes are many, the performances are uneven. Raft is as stiff as a board; Lorre acts goofy throughout. Nevertheless the production values exceed the plot-line. The atmosphere reeks of wartime danger and Tony Gaudio's cinematography makes us believe that we are in Ankara and Istanbul (Constantinople). The movie is fast-paced and finely edited. That car chase is one of the better ones in the first fifty years of world cinema history. Sydney Greenstreet is always great to watch; the man could certainly act. And I like those Lionel Trains.

The Nazis have forged some plans that are supposed to show that Russia wants to invade Turkey. Those plans are chased the whole movie through. Why these plans are so special and cannot be forged all over again or duplicated or whatever - that is never explained and the Nazis that did the plans in the first place are just as much in with the chase as everybody else! And then the Nazis have friendly newspapers in Turkey who are in on the deal with the faked plans and who could just as easily have received the plans by mail from Germany - dozens of them, in case one or two of them got lost in the mail but that would have been to easy, I guess.Well, maybe there were explanations for all this shenanigans in the book from which the story was taken but there sure wasn't any explanations in the picture and so I stopped being baffled at the stupidity of the story and instead watched whatever I could still cherish from this production and found some items. Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstedt deliver as good as ever. Raft is no Bogey but he isn't James Garner either and so he is quite bearable. The photography, lightning etc couldn't be much better and so it struck me.Had I seen this film on a matinée in my childhood days, I would probably have enjoyed it, since I would not have understood the plot but could still appreciate the action and the atmosphere. Maybe that's the way that most people see films? Sure enough, they seem to learn very little from films like The Bicycle Thief or One Flew Over the Cucko's Nest or The Third Man or Citizen Kane and, for sure, they seem unable to distinguish between bogus Abbas Kiarostami and Vittorio de Sica, for instance. That's why we have so many bulls-t artists in the film industry! As long as the production values that meet the eye are OK, nobody seems to bother about what reaches the ears.Still, personally, I don't seem able to get too much from Lorre and Greenstedt, so, in spite of being upset about the ridiculous story, I still enjoyed myself seeing this film.

This film shares several things with Casablanca. It has several members from that cast with some changes. It deals with Nazi's & intrigue though this time in Angora, Turkey instead of Morroco. Peter Lorre manages to get shot in both movies. Backgound To Danger is actually based upon a novel by the same name. Both movies came off Warner Brothers war propaganda assembly line. The differences are striking though. Even though this one has a higher power Director, Raoul Walsh, & a higher power writer, William Faulkner, involved in the film, it just simply is not as good. George Raft just isn't Bogart and Ingrid Bergman is no where to be found. Interesting it is the very next film after Casablanca for Greenstreet. This movie is entertaining, & it has a good cast. For some reason the script is where this falls short. Casablanca, just seems to be better on all counts.

International intrigue in hot spot Ankara, Turkey, during World War II is the center of this secret agent tail. Nasty Nazi Dr. Robinson (Sydney Greenstreet) plots to use lies in the press to push Turkey to ally itself with Germany against Russia. American Joe Barton (George Raft) is posing as a businessman when he falls into possession of falsified documents the Germans want printed in a sympathizing newspaper. Barton is soon mixed up with the Zaleshoffs (Peter Lorre and Brenda Marshall), a brother and sister claiming to be Russian spies who are after the same documents. Barton has trouble believing anyone, because they all attack him at various times and at least one of them is a cold-blooded killer. The plot had potential, but director Raoul Walsh did not seem to know quite what to do with a story of this nature and there is a complete lack of real emotion in the proceedings. He also seemed to be saddled with a low budget (the miniature train is painfully obvious). His three male stars all but play caricatures of themselves. Raft is all buttoned up and monosyllabic, Greenstreet is almost a cartoon, and Lorre chews the scenery and comes out best. Yet it is still a pretty good movie (if you can withstand being yelled out for the first five minutes and the overcooked musical scoring.) There is a great aura of suspicion over everyone, which leaves you guessing at everyone's connection with everyone else. There is also a great car chase, noir cinematography from Tony Gaudio that caresses Raft's closeups fondly, and some good visual bits that will make you smile.