Trece rue Madeleine

James Cagney stars in "13 Rue Madeleine," a routine WW II spy drama also starring Richard Conte, Annabella, and a several familiar faces in smaller roles: Sam Jaffe, Karl Malden, and E.G. Marshall. Done in semidocumentary style, Cagney plays the head of a U.S. spy cell, but the cell is known to have a Nazi in its midst. He is not eliminated so that he can be fed the wrong date for D-Day. When he kills one of the other spies, Cagney has to go in as a replacement.

Despite some nice performances, notably from Cagney and Conte, the film under Henry Hathaway's direction was quite slow; he was lumbered with a script where it was difficult to develop any feelings for most of the characters, as they were underdeveloped. There were some good scenes, particularly the ones with Jaffe's character and the French resistance. Darryl F. Zanuck brought the pretty, petite Annabella over from France to star her in films, unaware that she would fall in love with his top male star, Tyrone Power. When he tried to discourage the relationship by sending her back to France to do some films, she refused to leave her man, thus finishing her as far as Zanuck was concerned. It's a shame because although you can't tell in this movie, Annabella was an excellent actress, as she would prove on the stage. It's fun to see Karl Malden and E.G. Marshall in small parts.

The end of the film is powerful, but I prefer "OSS," also a small, semidocumentary film - catch that one if you have a chance.

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the American government recruits several agents for the Secret Service, to be trained by the experienced veteran of World War I Robert Emmett Sharkey (James Cagney). However Bob is advised that among the men and women called O-77 there is a German double-agent, infiltrated to discover the date and location of the Allied Front in Europe. He discovers the identity of the spy, but he feeds him with false information to misguide the Germans. However, he suspects, escapes and kills one agent that was assigned to kidnap an important collaborationist in France in a dangerous mission. Without time to prepare another rookie, Bob decides to travel to Le Havre to accomplish the assignment and kill the German agent if possible.

Despite being dated, excessively patriotic and naive in 2009 and the narrative like a documentary in the beginning, "13 Rue Madeleine" is a great movie of espionage, war and action. James Cagney and Richard Conte have wonderful roles and performances. There are flaws, like for example the easy way that Jeff Lassiter and Bill O'Connell breach the security system of the shipyard and lure the agent, but in the end this feature is a great entertainment. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Rua 13 Madeleine" ("Madeleine 13 Street")

Very interesting war drama starring James Cagney as a secret agent that has to infiltrate Nazi headquarters and double cross an enemy spy that has slipped into his own unit. The discovery of a German missile site location is the main objective. Cagney is air lifted into France and has trouble convincing French freedom fighters that he is there to loosen the Nazi strangle hold.

The cast is full of fine players: Richard Conte, Sam Jaffe, E.G. Marshall, Red Buttons, Karl Malden, Roland Winters and the lovely Annabella.

A great black and white flick evocative of the 40s. Catch it on AMC.

It gets off to a terrible start. An off-screen narrator, in a strict, authoritarian tone, announces to us lowly viewers that the film is a "tribute to the accomplishments by the U.S. Army Intelligence in WWII". Beyond this dreadful introduction, however, a credible story about American espionage, wrapped in a high quality cinematic package, provides viewers with a worthwhile payoff.

Bob Sharkey (James Cagney) trains young men and women to be American secret agents. These "077 candidates" go through tough physical and mental tests. Candidates who succeed are then sent on military intelligence assignments overseas. But one of those being trained by Sharkey is a German mole, working for Hitler.

In the film's first half, Sharkey finds the mole. The second half plot follows Sharkey's efforts both to deactivate the mole, and to find a man named Duclois, the builder of a German rocket depot, a facility constructed to launch bombs against England, and located in Nazi-occupied France. The mole, headquartered in an imposing building at 13 Rue Madeleine in the French port city of Le Havre, cleverly makes Sharkey's double mission difficult. And the film ends with a riveting climax that is surprisingly realistic for a 1940's film.

Cagney gives a really good performance. The film's screenplay allows for sufficient character development, unusual for WWII films. And with tight editing, the plot zips along at a fast pace, covering a lot of story material, so that viewers need to pay attention or risk missing important plot details.

Except for that awful prologue, everything about "13 Rue Madeleine" is high quality: the costumes, the dialogue, the B&W cinematography, and especially the acting and the editing. Director Henry Hathaway even uses authentic locales, further elevating the film's overall quality.

As a WWII espionage thriller, I cannot think of a better film than "13 Rue Madeleine".

I liked this movie. The plot concerns James Cagney as an OSS Type agent (I believed that for some reason the producers of this movie could not actually reference the term OSS). Cagney is one of the chief instructors in a US spy school (all the action happens in World War Two). Cagney finds out there is a top German agent going through this school. Cagney decides to let the German agent finished the training course and let him (German agent) parachute into occupied France (so the enemy agent will give the Germans false information). All this happens shortly before D-Day. However, the operation goes sour and Cagney has to parachute in to try to save the day.

I won't comment anymore on the plot as to not spoil the movie.

Probably the best World War Two spy/counterspy movies I have seen. I rate it high marks, very high marks indeed.