Producer/director: GEORGE KING. Screenplay: Katherine Strueby, Brock Williams. Additional dialogue: John Clements. Story: Dorothy Hope. Photography: Otto Heller. Camera operator: Gus Drisse. Exterior photography: Patrick Gay. Supervising film editor: Terence Fisher. Film editor: Winifred Cooper. Art director: Norman Arnold. Music composed by Roy Douglas and James Turner, directed by Jack Beaver. Songs by Jack Denby, Hans May, Alan Stranks, Muriel Watson, G. Arbib. Songs sung by Christiane De Murin. Sound recording: Ernest A. Royles, Cecil W. Thornton. Associate producer: John Stafford. Executive producer: S. W. Smith. (Available on an 8/10 Odeon DVD).A George King Production for British Aviation Pictures, released in the U.K. by British Lion: 20 March 1944. In the U.S.A. by 20th Century- Fox. Registered: December 1943. "U" certificate. New York opening at the Victoria: 29 July 1944. Australian release through G.B.D./20th Century-Fox: 8 February 1945. 7,904 feet. 87½ minutes.SYNOPSIS: A British spy outwits Nazi agents in Algiers.COMMENT: Aside from three sequences (the rescue from the hotel with a neatly-timed bit of impersonation by James Mason as the villains confer in the middle of an enormous vestibule while vacuum cleaners whirr in the foreground; the beautifully-lit confrontation and escape from the Casbah; the climactic car chase), this is a routine slice of war- time nonsense, routinely and even poorly acted (especially by the heroine who is not very attractively photographed either) and very routinely and uninspiredly directed. Lots of close- ups are used, because the film is largely stage-bound with lots of banal additional dialogue and familiar clichés of plot and characterization. Rilla does what he can with the part of the villain, but much of his effort is dissipated by King's heavy-handed direction.

I noticed a discrepancy with the running time of the version of this film I downloaded for free at archive.org--it runs 81 minutes, not 86. IMDb says there's a severely truncated version at 65 minutes...but this one I saw was missing only five minutes or the running time listed on IMDb is incorrect.When the film begins, Susan (Carla Lehmann) awakens in a hospital bed as there are celebrations for the combined Allied landing in North Africa. The film then jumps back to before this and explains what exactly had happened to Susan.A desperate escaped POW takes shelter in Susan's home in Algeria. At this point, the Vichy French and Americans were not at war with each other and so despite the Vichy being essentially a vassal state to the Nazis, American nationals are allowed in this part of France even though the US and Germany are at war. So, if Susan wanted to, she simply could have turned in Alan (James Mason) and been safe. But instead he soon convinces her to help him obtain a camera filled with important film...film which COULD hamper the Americans and Free French from invading North Africa. And, as a result of her choice, Susan is in almost constant peril.This is a pretty exciting war film--one obviously meant to drum up sentiment in favor of the Allied cause. While technically this is a propaganda film, it's a good one and doesn't come off as jingoistic or which depicts the Germans as monsters like many other films. Because of this, it holds up pretty well, though most viewers today might not understand the context for the film--such as what was Vichy France and how were the Free French very different. Still, an enjoyable little film. Oh, and although it doesn't matter, the American lady, Susan, was played by a Canadian. And, there also is a bit of a plot hole as the film really did NOT explain why Susan was in the hospital--particularly as just before this she seemed healthy and just fine on the ship. Odd...as was the ending, though that was odd in an enjoyable sense.

A watchable but bland movie, without any poetry, wit or charm, but with an annoying leading man (the chap tracked by the German secret service) and an also bland, often uninspiring leading woman (though I enjoyed the way she was wearing her dresses); the title, the genre itself, the cast seem promising, but the blandness of the craft is enhanced by the carelessness and silliness of the script, the plot enhances the strong scent of silliness and schmaltz and the blandness of the cartoon characters (Thurston's insolence and authoritarianism make him intensely annoying). Some sense of menace and threat, with characters meant to look intriguing, results despite this mediocre movie being blandly made by G. King; the movie has a strong scent of silliness, but some may enjoy the car-chase at Cap Hazard, or the passing from the hotels and glamorous prostitution to the slum of Kasbah, and it could all have been exciting, with the interrogatory at GAC and the sacrifice of the French girl. The plot happens in Biskra and then Alger, during the armistice masquerade, when the Germans look for a map, the map of a house at Cap Hazard, where the Allied officers meet to prepare the attack; Rilla plays Müller, the mastermind of the German espionage in Alger. When the American girl is brought to Müller's office, at the German Armistice Commission, and she leans across the desk to help him solve the puzzle game, she couldn't have reached the board from where she stood; Thurston was about to be executed by people who don't even care to arrest him. The schmaltz previously mentioned is due to G. King, one of the lousiest English directors.

"Candlelight in Algeria" is, by my standards, a superior noir adventure which concerns a secret conference being held, despite danger, in Algeria during WWII. The protagonist is an American girl from Kansas--a reference to Dorothy's line in the"Wizard of Oz" (1939) "I guess we're not in Kansas any more." She is staying with relatives and falls in with a spy, ably played by the powerful James Mason. The body of this brilliantly suspenseful film then falls into important episodes, involving a dangerous theft, misunderstandings, a major confrontation with the Nazi's chief investigator, and a thrilling flight leading to the final action--one in which Mason risks his life to divert the Nazis and their coerced French partners from disrupting the conference. The film is told in an envelope flashback by the heroine, Lehman, in a hospital, wondering whether Mason is alive or dead. George King directed most skillfully, from a script by Dorothy Hope, John Clements, Katharine Strueby and Brock Williams. The film was produced by John Stafford with original music by Roy Douglas and James Turner and award- level cinematography by Otto Heller. The fine art direction was done by Norman G. Arnold. In the above-average cast, Carla Lehman was charismatic and intelligent as the American girl, and James Mason more than excellent as the solider-spy who enlists her before falling in love with her. Walter Rilla plays a most intelligent spy master, Dr, Muller; Raymond Lovell and Enid Stamp-Taylor are used for comedy. Offbeat Pamela Stirling as Yvette and the rest of the cast are all more than adequate. A classic chase and hiding out in the Casbah is given touches of humor, without ever losing its interesting edge as it pits suave Brit Mason against brave but naive neo-puritan USer, Lehman. Look for the interrogation scenes, the Algiers' hideout scenes and the climactic, intelligent chase sequence, among others. This is a film worth watching many times, and for many values, I suggest. It was often imitated afterward but seldom equaled.