Miles-10

A hard-to-solve crime is sometimes solved when an alert cop accidentally stumbles on the perpetrator acting suspiciously, or a guilty conscience brings a witness or the perp himself to confess, or, nowadays, a new DNA analysis uncovers the identity of the criminal. In the real-life case that is the basis for this four part series, any of these things could have happened (and one seems to almost happen but turns out to be a red herring).

Sixteen years is a long time to take to solve a double murder. (Though, of course, some murder cases have never been solved, which is a lot longer than this case took.) If this were fiction, the time it took to solve the case would be borderline boring, and the red herring that develops would have seemed like a cheat since it was set up as if it might mean a lot more than it did. The coincidence that ends up solving the case is almost too coincidental, except that this coincidence not only really happened, but also, you would think that in 16 years investigators might have discovered the coincidence sooner or run across other evidence that made finding the coincidence unnecessary. (The police note the last point themselves.)

Others have found this series to be well paced. Well, if it went on for ten episodes, that would have been way too slow. As it is, though, I think that four hours is too long. Dramatic events in the case were years apart. We almost feel like we are living with the characters in real time. We see how all of the main characters--police and victims' families alike--are dragged down by the weight of the case. Still, the ending is hopeful. People can get second chances once the external reason for being depressed is lifted, but it is seen that they have to make an effort to benefit from this opportunity. Some good can come from tragedy. Even the coincidence that solves the case also leads to a surpising but logical outcome that connects two characters we were not expecting to get together; yet, when it happens, it makes perfect sense. (Lesson: If your story has a coincidence in it, make sure it pays off believably. In this case, reality did that.)

This is a puff piece, created by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover in partnership with Twentieth Century Fox. He not only gave the filmmakers access to promotional material about FBI methods but instructed his agents to participate as extras.

The story is about no-nonsense FBI Special Agent George Briggs (Lloyd Nolan), who oversees counter intelligence in New York City. When the existence of a German spy ring comes to his attention, he happens to have an ace in the hole in the person of German-American double agent William Dietrich (William Eythe) who infiltrates the "Christopher" ring. The only true mystery is the identity of Christopher, which is withheld until the climax. Before that, we only see Christopher at a distance and from the waist down or, sometimes obliquely, with his hat covering much of his face. In the stead of Christopher, the ring seems to be led by coldly elegant Elsa Gebhardt (Signe Hasso), suave Colonel Hammersohn (Leo G. Carroll), and ruthless Johanna Schmidt (Lydia St. Claire). All three of these villains are memorable, although Hasso is the movie's secret weapon, and not only because her coif and skirt suit are fashionably timeless.

The spy ring is trying to steal secrets to the atomic bomb. It is suggested that this story could only be told after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945, but it might be more accurate to say that this movie's fictional plot could only have been concocted after Hiroshima. There were undoubtedly German spies in New York trying to steal all manner of information, but they were never assigned a mission like the one portrayed here. The German nuclear program would have benefited from intelligence about the Manhattan Project (never named as such in this movie), but their program lagged the Allied program due to under-funding and lack of other resources, thanks to Hitler's dismissal of nuclear physics as "Jewish science." Although at the end of this 1945 movie, the narrator assures us that nuclear secrets remain secure, we later learned that they had, in fact, already been stolen from the U. S. and Great Britain not by Nazis but by Soviet spies.

During World War II, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was largely responsible for counter-intelligence, detecting and arresting foreign spies and saboteurs. It even conducted foreign intelligence gathering, especially in Latin America. There was a rivalry between Hoover and William Donovan, head of the Office of Strategic Services, which was supposed to be solely in charge of foreign intelligence operations.

The narrator tells us that 16,440 spies, saboteurs, and "dangerous" foreign nationals were detained, and some were interned. Six were executed. The big number is unverifiable. More like 11,000 Germans in the U. S. were rounded up. Another 8,000 Germans with Latin American citizenship or residency were arrested, too, but adding this number would overshoot the film's figure. Fewer than two thousand Italian nationals were interned, although many more faced restrictions. (BTW these round ups were hardly surgical: Anyone who still had German or Italian citizenship-even if they had, say, escaped Germany because they were Jewish-was vulnerable to being scooped up by the Bureau and interned, at least briefly.) If we add the number of Japanese-Americans who were sent to camps in the U. S., then more than one hundred thousand people would be added to the narrator's figure. (To his credit, Hoover protested the internment of Japanese-Americans, but he followed orders and rounded them up, anyway.) The six men mentioned by the narrator as having been executed recalls a real FBI case. A German saboteur named George Dasch tried repeatedly to turn himself in to the FBI, but the Bureau didn't believe him and turned him away. Finally, Dasch showed the FBI $84,000 he had been given to fund the German operation. This led to the capture and execution of six of Dasch's colleagues. Thus, the movie's revelation that the "Christopher Case" came to light by accident lends more verisimilitude than would be flattering to the FBI.

A real-life counterpart of the understated Special Agent Briggs may have been William King Harvey, although he was flamboyant rather than understated. Harvey, who seems to have, indeed, uncovered Nazi spies during the war, later joined the Central Intelligence Agency and became involved in high-tech spying on the Soviets in Berlin and, still later, with attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro, although he had actually been transferred out of that job before some of the more harebrained schemes to kill Castro were hatched.

Texas Rangers (Jeff Bridges, Gil Birmingham) chase serial bank robbers (Chris Pine, Ben Foster) across the West Texas landscape. But though they ride cars and trucks instead of horses, make no mistake. This is as much of a Western as another Jeff Bridges film, "True Grit," though that was set in the 19th century and this is set in the 21st.

While the plot is punctuated with action, the personalities of the lead characters played by Bridges and Pine make us care about and root for each alternatively. And the interplay of each with his ally raises further feelings of concern. Bridges character, Marcus, keeps making racist remarks to his partner, Alberto, as if these should be taken as gentle ribbing, but Alberto is obviously (to us) barely surpressing resentment.

On the other side, Toby (Pine) is aware that his brother, Tanner (Foster), is a loose cannon who has to be treated with care, although Toby knows what we only learn as the story develops, which is that Tanner loves his brother and will never hurt him--even if no one else is safe from his violent impulses.

The relentlessness or these representatives of law and disorder as well as their cat-and-mouse logic as each plans his next move, threaten to lead to tragedy; yet the expectation of a showdown between good and evil, while partially fulfilled, is mixed with something more subtle and thoughtful.