Betrayal from the East

***SPOILER*** Shocking expose of an attempted Japanese take-over of the United States west-coast by a gang of Japanese spies and their American counterparts, ethnic Japanese Americans. Based on the 1943 block-buster book "Betrayal from the East" by Alan Hynd the movie shows how closed we, the USA, was in being taken over from within.

Getting wind of the massive Japanese conspiracy in early 1941 US Embassy officials in Tokyo Marsden & Hildebrand, Louis James Hyde & Jason Robards Sr, try to warn Washington and the US military about it but end up dead; Marsden falling overboard on a Japanese passenger ship going back to the states and Hildebrand falling to his death from a high-rise building in Tokyo.

In charge of this conspiracy back in the USA is the UCLA Football teams lead cheerleader Tani who's really Japanese Lt. Cmdr. Miyazaki, Richard Loo, and his band of Japanese agents led by Kato & Yamato, Philip Ahn & Abner Biberman. Kato gets in contact with his American friend and girlie show barker Eddie Carter, Lee Tracy, who served in the US military in the Panama Canal Zone a major target of Japanese Imperial Navy in the event of a war with the US.

Eddie broke and in need of cash quirky falls for Kato's offer to pay him for information abut US defenses in the Panama Canal and even gives him the name of a friend of his Sgt. Scott, who like Eddie is broke and willing to sell out his county for a few dollars, who still stationed there for further references. Little does Kato and his boss the secretive Lt. Cmdr. Miyazki know is that there's no such person as Sgt. Scott and that Eddie is setting him and his fellow spies up to be taken out and caught by the US military and FBI.

Eddie is later contacted by Peggy Harrison, Nancy Kelly, an undercover G-2, the forerunner to the CIA, agent on a train trip to L.A about the Japanses conspiracy. Told b Peggy to play along with his Japanese cohorts in order to find out what their up to she's later exposed as a G-2 undercover agent when Kato plants a hidden camera in Eddie's apartment. Peggy together with Eddie's and his Japanese house boy Omaya,Victor Sen Young, are secretly working with the G-2 US military Intelligence Agency.

Grabing Omaya the Japanese spies force Eddie to witness him being tortured and murdered by them to strike home to him what's to happen to anyone who cross' them. Peggy now knowing, from Eddie, that the Japanese spies are on to her has herself run over,in a G-2 staged accident,in order to make them think that she's dead.

Eddie is now given a ticket, on a Japanese freighter, to travel to the Canal Zone and get in contact with Sgt. Scott and get the vital information about US defenses there back to Lt. Cmdr. Miyazki. The whole operation is being monitored by the US military with a phony Sgt. Scott, Regis Toomey, planted there to make the Japanese spies feel that both Eddie, as an American traitor and spy for Japan, and Sgt. Scott, a real flesh and blood person, are legit.

Getting in touch with his Japanese contact in the Canal Zone a Mr. Araki, Dr. Hugh Ho Chang, Eddie is told to get all the information he can from Sgt. Scott about it's, the US military in the Canal Zone, defenses. Eddie also finds out that the "dead" Peggey Harrison is very much alive vacationing there undercover as a German tourist named Sandra Borough who not only changed her name but her hair, she dyed it blond obviously to look more Aryan,and blows her cover when she foolishly rekindles her love affair with him. This leads to Peggy being caught by the Japanese spies, and together with their German allies, boiled to death in a steam or Turkish bath.

Eddie has it out at the end of the movie with Lt.Cmdr. Miyazaki and even though he does the UCLA cheerleader in he ends up losing his life but eventually stops Miyazki's master plan to bring down he US with a coordinated outside Japanese military and inside Japanese sabotage assault on America.

The movie "Betrayal from the East" is done in a "Now it can be told" style narrative with syndicated columnist Drew Pearson inserted into the film giving it's both prologue and epilogue. Pearson telling the audience how close we were from being taken over by the Japanese Empire really hits home.

For all the Japanese meticulous planning it all in the end came apart because of the bravery and self-sacrifice of men and women like Eddie Carter and Peggy Harrison who put, and lost, their lives on the line in order to stop them.

With World War II approaching, Japan's diplomatic services push a global message of peace but, behind the scenes they plot their attack on the US, using a network of spies and traitors to get information to aid their mission. In America, Japanese secret agent Kato approaches former soldier Eddie Carter to recruit him to report back the details of the Panama Canal. Eddie is down on his luck and working as an announcer in a tacky fair sideshow and he agrees to help them for a big payday. However he quickly has his doubts and finds himself in the position to do the right thing for the US and act as a double agent.

With lots of talk about "Japs" and the title sequence involving a typical "yellow menace" image of a Japanese man it is no surprise that this thriller is very much a simple propaganda film. Presented by newsman Drew Pearson, we are told the story of how "friendly" Japanese in America are really spies, not to be trusted, who use their cunning and sweet talk to win over a typically good American to make him betray his country. Unsurprisingly the drama is as simple as the characters and although it works well enough on the level of an engaging piece of propaganda it doesn't have too much to make it stick in the mind; with perhaps a late scene of steam bath torture being the one exception. It goes where you expect it to and it moves forward without the pace and tension that I would have liked but, like I said, as a simple propaganda thriller it just about does enough.

The cast match this approach by being solid but nothing more. Lee Tracy is a cookie-cutter all-American Joe who does "the right thing" and opens all our eyes to the fact that no Japanese people in America can be trusted. He is OK but I wonder does he regret his role given what happened to Japanese Americans around this period? Kelly is alright and Ahn and Biberman do their usual roles in American films from the time but generally they all turn in the type of solid performances that one would expect to find in this type of thing.

Overall this is an OK but unmemorable thriller that is heavy with propaganda and a sense of fear-driven rabble-rousing. It more or less works as a simple b-movie but it is hard to totally get into it when looking back with hindsight and modern eyes and seeing the clear racism and very broad strokes used to present clean-cut white heroes and smarmy, untrustworthy yellow devils.

Inspired from actual events, this William Berke's film is very unusual and interesting. It shows that in America, you have born Americans - white, not Asian - who could work for the Rising Sun evil empire. What a shock for me...I thought that only Americans from Japanese descent could, for obvious reasons. Thats' for this reason, I guess, they were all sent to camp such as Manzamar.... So, yes, what a gem this RKO movie, revealing astounding matters. Philip Ahn is of course i the cast. I am deadly sure that he played in every forties decade war film involving the Pacific front, not the European of course !!!

When "Betrayal from the East" begins, it claims that the story is based on fact. However, how close it is to the truth is something I have no idea about...and suspect some of this might be overstated a bit due to the common narrative at the time that there were Nazi and Japanese agents all over the place trying to undermine America. Who knows the exact truth?

Eddie (Lee Tracy) is an ex-army soldier who is seen by Japanese agents as possibly being willing to spy for them. He quickly realizes what's happening and pretends to play along with them...and soon seeks out Army Intelligence to alert them about the Japanese plans. They ask him to keep playing along but also advise him that previous folks working for them all ended up dead! But Eddie is a true patriot and is going to see it to the end...especially after the Japanese kill a lady he really liked.

The quality of this film is pretty good and Lee Tracy is also good here....better than he was in most of his later outings following his years at MGM as a star. In particular, I appreciate that although the film was clearly a propaganda picture it was still entertaining and well written...and as a result the Japanese were not the usual sub-human, evil, sniveling sort they were in the more sordid films of the era.

Lee Tracy reminds of a fit WC Fields; he looks and talks like him, acts like, but is nowhere nearly as funny. How a woman like Kelly would fall for a guy like him really stretches the limits of believability. Philip Ahn plays Kato, a role that will be revived by another actor alongside of Peter Sellers in the Pink Panther series. Other than that, this film has no socially redeeming value whatsoever, especially the fake news at the beginning and end by the exploitative Drew Pearson, an overpuffed newspaper reporter. This jingoistic kaka is fine to raise money for war bonds, but the war is over. By the way, in real life, the American hero wouldnt last thrity seconds with a real Eastern martial arts fighter. Not recommended.