Cabo Blanco (or Caboblanco) is a 1980 American drama film directed by J. Lee Thompson. It has been described as a remake of Casablanca, but there are only a few similarities between the two movies.
In 1948 in Cabo Blanco, an isolated fishing village in Peru, Giff Hoyt (Charles Bronson) only wants to run his bar and hide from a murder warrant waiting for him in the United States, until beautiful Frenchwoman Marie Allesandri (Dominique Sanda) arrives. She is seeking her lover Jacques, a former friend of Giff who was the Sole Survivor of the crew of the Brittany, which sunk in an unknown location with a fortune in treasure. Gunther Beckdorff (Jason Robards), a fugitive Nazi who is trying to find the treasure in cahoots with corrupt police captain Terredo (Fernando Rey), has frogmen blow up a British bathysphere that was also searching for the sunken vessel, drawing the attention of British spy Lewis Clarkson.
The film contains the following tropes:
- Argentina Is Nazi Land: Or Peru in this case. Gunther Beckdorff is a fugitive Nazi wanted for war crimes. He was meant to be extradited for the Nuremberg Trials and his shipload of treasure confiscated by the Peruvian government, so he did a deal with the Provincial Minster, promising a cut of the wealth on the Brittany.
- Banana Republic: Cabo Blanco is a haven for wanted men, and both the provincial minister and police captain are corrupt, conspiring together to cover up several overt murders.
- Better to Die than Be Killed: Gunther bites down on a cyanide tooth rather than be extradited to Germany where he would be hung for war crimes.
- Come Alone: A good guy version, and surprisingly Gunther does come alone, perhaps because he's reluctant to have anyone else hear the location of the Brittany.
- The Coroner Doth Protest Too Much:
- Despite the huge waterspout from an underwater explosion, the death of the bathysphere operator is ruled an accident by Captain Terredo, to Clarkson's fury. When another man gets killed by divers for swimming in the area, Clarkson sarcastically suggests he got a cramp and drowned and Terredo calmly goes with that line, even though the dead man was the father of one of his policemen.
- Averted when Terredo reports Gunther's suicide to the Provincial Minister, who just orders the captain to bury him in an unmarked grave.
- Cover Identity Anomaly: Clarkson says his ship is charting the Humboldt Current, not looking for a sunken treasure. But surely Humboldt had already charted the current, says Giff? When Clarkson claims that Humboldt hadn't completed the job, Giff points out that the current was named in honor of Humboldt, which a marine geographer should know.
- Did Not Think This Through: Marie claims that Giff knows the location of the Brittany, planning to warn him so he can flee before Gunther's men come looking for him, but she can't find Giff because he's busy rescuing Clarkson. This leaves Giff trapped in Cabo Blanco with his boat guarded and a curfew preventing him leaving by vehicle.
- Dirty Cop: Captain Terredo, who acts as Gunther's minion and takes bribes from Giff not to extradite him to the United States where he's wanted for murder.
- Dramatic Thunder and rain for the final scene.
- The Dulcinea Effect: Giff goes to a lot of trouble to help the ex-girlfriend of some guy he once knew who ran off after clearing out his till (though Giff realises the latter was Nothing Personal, as everyone needs ready cash when they go on the run). This is despite Giff being the only one who's not interested in finding the treasure.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Captain Terredo is disgusted when he realises the treasure on the Brittany was looted from churches, synagogues, and the victims of Nazi death camps. It's what convinces him to finally pick a side.
- Forged Message: Marie was lured to Cabo Blanco with a forged message from Jacques that had actually been sent by Gunther, in the hope that Jacques had told her where the Brittany was sunk. In truth she hasn't seen or heard from her lover since he left on the Brittany.
- Gold Fever: Giff is told the Brittany was carrying 22 million dollars in gold, specifically to invoke this trope. In truth it's carrying treasure looted by the Nazis from occupied Europe and is worth far more.Gunther: She told you there was gold on the ship? (laughs) Is that what you told him?Marie: Twenty-two million dollars worth. Gold is a magic word. But it didn't work.Gunther: Ah, Giff... People slip and chop and sell their children when gold is mentioned but you don't even budge.
- Hidden Weapons: In the final act Gunther stops Giff going behind the bar under the assumption that he has a weapon hidden there. A short time later Giff puts a pistol to Gunther's head after ducking behind the bar, so it appears that he did.
- Honey Trap: Terrendo gets local prostitute Rosa to sleep with Clarkson and spy on him.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Horst dies by having a spiked wall ornament fall on him.
- Interrupted Intimacy:
- Captain Terredo is playing around with two naked women in bed when Giff barges in on him.
- Clarkson investigates a hut on a beach and finds evidence (diving suits and plastic explosive) that they blew up his bathysphere. Unfortunately the divers are also there, lying naked in hammocks with a couple of equally naked prostitutes. Heedless of their nakedness they grab guns and chase after Clarkson, wounding him as he's fleeing. He only escapes because they have to run back to get their clothes after he runs off into the jungle.
- Legend Fades to Myth: Even though the treasure is retrieved and returned to those it was stolen from, the legend of more treasure being out there brings fortune hunters who turn Cabo Blanco from a fishing village to a prime tourist spot.
- Ms. Fanservice: Marie is a gorgeous young Frenchwoman who gifts the audience with a Toplessness from the Back scene and shots of her long, lovely legs.
- Nazi Gold: Only it's not gold but Nazi Plunder.
- Not in Front of the Parrot!: Jacques taught Lefty, the parrot in Giff's bar, the coordinates of the Brittany when it was sunk.
- Old Flame: Hera, whom Giff dumped for being The Alcoholic, now lives with Gunther, who has grown equally tired of her drinking. Giff still has some feelings for Hera and intervenes when Horst is strangling her.
- Pirate Booty: A sunken ship with a cargo of stolen treasure that men would kill for. There's even a parrot!
- Red Herring: Giff pockets the lump of plastic explosive that Clarkson found in Gunther's lair. In the climatic scene Giff shouts that the jukebox is rigged to blow, causing everyone to duck for cover, but it's just a trick so Giff can get his hands on a gun.
- Right Under Their Noses: Giff runs out the door of the doctor's house and hides under the short concrete staircase while the pursuing police officer runs off down the beach.
- Ruthless Modern Pirates: Gunther's men blow up the bathysphere and kill one of the locals just for diving in the area looking for pearls.
- Shameless Fanservice Girls: The live-in prostitutes that hang around with Gunther's men are naked in every scene they appear.
- Sink the Lifeboats: Horst machine-gunned the survivors of the Brittany in their dingy to Leave No Witnesses on where it sank. Big mistake, as the ship didn't sink where they thought it did. Jacques survived the massacre because Giff found him washed up on the shore and took him to a doctor.
- Sleeping Dummy: Gunther shoots a shadowy figure who turns out to be his minion Horst, who was already dead and propped up in a corner to distract him.
- Trojan Prisoner: Captain Terredo is captured by Giff, but says he'd lose all authority if people saw him being led down the street with a gun in his back. Giff allows himself to be taken prisoner and led to Giff's bar where Gunther is waiting, but Terredo refuses to hand back the gun once they get there.
- Vehicular Sabotage: Jacques planted a magnet on the ship's compass of the Brittany to lead it off course, so it wouldn't sink where it was supposed to when the bomb Gunther hid on board went off.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: What happened to Jacques after he fled Cabo Blanco?
- You Kill It, You Bought It: Giff ends up living in Gunther's house on the hill, having become wealthy from the tourist trade. And he has Marie in the swimming pool, so he got the girl as well!
