Edward G. Robinson and Victor McLaglen co-starred in this inflated B war time action/adventure saga of the merchant marine. Both of these guys must have had nothing else going on at this point in their careers.Robinson is captain and McLaglen first mate of an oil tanker operating out of the Caribbean and one fine day they rescue some folks whose ship was torpedoed by a U-boat. Among those rescued are Lynn Bari who has no passport and no one else can quite account for her among the survivors.She and Robinson hit it off and they have one of those impulsive marriages. But later on Robinson's ship is also torpedoed and when he's rescued he starts to think he might have made a bad decision. And he's determined to find out one way or another.Tampico is one of those films that gives homage to that famous wartime slogan of 'loose lips sink ships'. But as it turns out it wasn't some flannel mouthed indiscretion by someone that got Robinson's ship sunk. This was quite calculated and planned.It's also an inflated B film with very little thought given to plot structure and a story line that is well nigh implausible at times. A relic of World War II years much like Robinson's oil tanker.

Robinson easily holds our attention as Captain Bart Manson whose merchantman's whereabouts are betrayed by - whom? A combination of sea-adventure, spy-thriller and naive romance in which both the main performances and especially the photography are surely excellent and the action sequences sufficiently arresting not to tarnish the finish of the film as a whole. The central performance does not stretch (if "stretch" is the right word - he's never really over-stretched, is he?) Robinson as far as his Wolf Larson does (psychotically afloat in "The Sea-Wolf") but that really should not deter anyone from fully enjoying "Tampico", which has an excellent noirish atmosphere, particularly in the scenes set amongst colonnades and dark doorways in the last twenty minutes of the movie. Among the supporting roles, there is no weak or irritating contribution to spoil the force of the picture. Lynn Bari, in particular, is more than interesting in her work in this film, (the question of who her character really is and where she came from drives the plot; the audience must form its own opinion...)There are awkward moments in the directing, it has to be said, particularly earlier on, where the plot moves rather elliptically forward, but this is too small a criticism significantly to spoil the film.

Tampico (1944) ** (out of 4) Standard spy yarn has Edward G. Robinson playing a skipper of an oil rig during WW2 when the German's are trying to sink all the rigs. He saves a beautiful woman (Lynn Bari) from the sea and marries her but when his ship gets hit by a torpedo his men think the new wife was a spy. This film only runs 75-minutes but there's not really enough story for a twenty-minute movie. Robinson is pretty good in his role as is Bari but the supporting cast, including Victor McLaglen, doesn't add much spice to the story. The direction is pretty uninspired throughout and some of the dialogue is quite laughable.

Robinson's career as a leading man was on the downslide at this point and he was jerkily moving into starring support roles like his turn in DOUBLE INDEMNITY when he made this one, a handsome Fox programmer with noir lighting in which his role is a bit of a retread, combining the lovesick dope of TIGER SHARK, the mature sea captain and some World War Two intrigue. He's got good players with him too, with Lynn Bari and Victor MacLaglen.... and when it came to playing a role cleanly and honestly in the movie theater, Robinson's only competition was Spencer Tracy. And if they have film footage of either of them reading the telephone book, it will be worth seeing. So this one is worth your time. Which you should have known when you saw his name on the cast list.