1930s Morocco on Film

Vintage Films and Historical Writing

Reconstructing vintage Tangier, I found myself wondering how Tangier and Morocco was portrayed in cinema of the day before WWII film classic "Casablanca."

Two treasures stand out for me.

"Morocco" (1930) starring Marlene Dietrich as a cross dressing chanteuse and Gary Cooper as an American in the French Foreign Legion, was a big hit, nominated for Academy Awards. There's a famous same-sex kiss that stirred controversy back then. Some scenes were filmed in Morocco, but it's mostly filmed in studio.

"La Bandera" (1935), a French film, is astonishing, because it's set and filmed in what was then Spanish controlled northern Morocco, the territory that enclosed the International City of Tangier. This is a film of a lost world, of Spanish colonial towns and outposts of the Spanish Foreign Legion. It's a great yarn about a murderer who flees Paris and joins the Spanish Foreign Legion, pursued by a French police agent into the Rif Mountains of northern Morocco. There are spectacular shots of the Legion HQ, dominated by a hulking baroque building at Dar Riffien. (I once attempted to explore its ruins but was discouraged by Moroccan soldiers.)

All the ways films helped my writing goes beyond a single blog post. But seeing Morocco portrayed in "pictures" gave me fodder for how Europeans imagined the country before they ever saw it.