Yet another attempt a la "Casablanca" to whip up excitement by placing a homely middle-aged American among exotic foreigners, this might have been tolerable had they just lost the dull, abrasive George Raft altogether and made the ultrafoxy Turhan Bey the leading man from the beginning. As it is, the film lights up the moment this dazzling hunk makes his first appearance as a clerk behind a tobacconist's counter, and the entire first half of the film that's gone before seems like a hopeless waste. And that's WITH Peter Lorre. After Lorre's gone, forget it, you can stop the tape.