America’s first major war after gaining independence was not its rematch with Britain in 1812, or any prolonged war with a Native American people, but the Barbary Wars, a series of attempts to get North African states to cease piratical operations against American shipping. The states of Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli (current day Libya), were Islamic Ottoman-supported states that, operating under the doctrine of Jihad, constantly attacked European shipping. The pirates would attack merchant and passenger vessels, seizing any goods and enslaving the crew and passengers. European nations would have to pay ransoms to free the slaves. The British government had willingly paid heavy sums to protect their merchant ships, which meant their economic competitors would suffer more seizures. Independent of Britain, the United States merchants were now fair game. After several humiliations, the US formed a proper navy and conducted the Barbary Wars, forcing the African states to stop.
This long paragraph provides background for Tripoli, a historical adventure film that, like many older Hollywood films, steers clear of the heavier elements of the story. We don’t hear about European prisoners being turned into slaves until they can be ransomed (the slave trade in this part of the world was actually quite massive, though by 1800 it had turned more into a ransom racket as the Islamic world was in decline) and there is nothing about the religious justification used by the state of Tripoli. Instead we get a typical, though exotic, adventure flick with a heavy infusion of ahistorical romance.
I
would have loved to watch a film about the naval actions, but Tripoli instead is about the Marines’
incredible 500 mile march from Egypt through the desert to Derna, where they won
a heated battle. In fact, the name Tripoli can be heard in the opening of the
Marines’ official song, and composer Max Steiner employs the melody from the
song throughout his score.
The
main lead is Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon (John Payne), who leads a collection
of US Marines, Arab volunteers, and Greek mercenaries to Derna. Once there he’ll
lead a ground assault while the Navy under Commodore Samuel Barron bombards the
enemy guns from the sea. He also needs to bring along Hamet Karamanli (Phillip
Reed), the deposed brother of the current ruling pasha of Tripoli. In exchange
for having his throne restored, Hamet will force peaceful relations with the
US. So far this sounds pretty accurate, but then it turns out O’Bannon never
got married in real life, opening him up for a Hollywood love interest (uh-oh).
The main cast (John Payne, Maureen O'Hara, Howard da Silva, and Phillip Reed) on a lobby card.
Said
romantic lead is the French Countess Sheila D’Arneau, played by none other than
the famed Maureen O’Hara (she doesn't have a French accent; in fact nobody bothers with accents). She is hanging around Hamet’s court and proves to be
a troublesome nuisance, coming along when asked not to and trying to undermine
O’Bannon’s authority for her own ends. It’s one of those old Hollywood romances
where the two leads bicker and quarrel before the man suddenly kisses the woman
and they’re in love. O’Hara is fun to watch, but this plot takes up a massive
chunk of the film, one covering a historical event that’s fascinating enough.
Hamet
Karamanli himself gets a historical villain upgrade. He’s a slimy schemer who towards
the end actually agrees to split Tripoli with his brother in return for
tricking O’Bannon’s force into a trap. The filmmakers may have done this so
that anybody who did more research on the event wouldn’t feel too bad when they
learned that the US government struck a deal with Hamet’s brother, meaning the
entire march to Derna was something of a waste of time. In real life O’Bannon
was bitterly disappointed that he couldn’t march on and take out the pasha, and
Hamet would return to exile in Egypt.
The
Battle of Derna itself could have been a cool climax, but the movie instead has
O’Bannon, the stock big sergeant, and the commander of the Greek mercenaries
(Howard da Silva, who played Benjamin Franklin in 1776!) disguise themselves as North Africans so they can sneak
inside and undo Hamet and the Pasha’s trap (I won’t explain all the details).
There is some actual battling, but we get some ahistorical bugle calls for the cavalry
charge. These calls would not be developed until far later in the century.
A painting of the real Battle of Derna by Charles Waterhouse
Tripoli covers one of
the more forgotten episodes in American history and is an entertaining hour and
a half watch if you’ve got a short block of time to fill. Unfortunately the
movie finds a way to shoehorn a romance and individual heroics at the expense
of what was already a cool historical event.
Rating:
4/10
Hilariously, Payne and O'Hara had already co-starred together in another movie called To the Shore of Tripoli eight years earlier. Is this the only reason they were cast in this one?
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