Best Travel Movies

Marozzi, Justin, Newsweek International

Byline: Justin Marozzi

From Rick's Cafe to Rome, these screen fantasies take us to the farthest horizons.

Wartime

1. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

What is it about Brits and the desert? Past masters at meddling in the Middle East, they brought us Lawrence, a brilliant, deeply flawed literary soldier who was turned into a wartime hero by the American broadcaster Lowell Thomas. David Lean's masterpiece is dominated by a searing performance from Peter O'Toole, at once complicated and conflicted, schmoozing the urbane Faisal (Alec Guinness) and hurtling madly into battle on camelback. Lean brought the burning desert sensationally to life through the latest Super Panavision 70 cinematography, while Maurice Jarre's epic score lent a noble quality to this Boy's Own campaign in the desert, a corner of the First World War that, heroics aside, was really little more than a sideshow of a sideshow.

2. Casablanca (1942)

The enduring themes of love, war, personal tragedy, double-dealing, and an edge-of-the-seat denouement that can reduce the hardest-hearted grump to a secret sniffle, together with some of the great lines in film history, make Casablanca an all-time favorite. As the expatriate owner of Rick's Cafe Americain, Humphrey Bogart stalks Vichy-controlled Casablanca, a place of fear and smoky glamour, with brooding intensity. Who wouldn't throw it all in just to be with the divine Ilsa, played by Ingrid Bergman? But Rick is made of …

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Publication information: Article title: Best Travel Movies. Contributors: Marozzi, Justin - Author. Magazine title: Newsweek International. Volume: 158. Issue: 20 Publication date: November 14, 2011. Page number: Not available. © 2009 Newsweek, Inc. All rights reserved. Any reuse, distribution or alteration without express written permission of Newsweek is prohibited. For permission: www.newsweek.com. COPYRIGHT 2011 Gale Group.

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