13 rue Madeleine

13 Rue Madeleine (1947)

This movie starts slowly and gets gradually better as it goes, until a gripping final half hour and a shocking, dramatic ending. So it's worth the ride, and worth seeing James Cagney who is at the top of his game here (he is about to make his masterpiece, White Heat, after 15 years of gangster portrayals.) Of course here his tough guy persona is put to use for the good of us all, a patriot training a group of high level war time spies. The Nazis are brutal, and World War II is unrelenting, so even this highly skilled people die. It's a reminder how tragic the war was. It is made to be exciting and even fascinating, but most of all dangerous.

Though purely fiction, for legal reasons (the pre-CIA OSS spy organization didn't want too much revealed in the movie), the filming is meant to seem realistic in a documentary way, and it begins with an authoritative voice-over and what looks like some vintage footage. This "information" is given for too long a time, and if you are not a war expert, or even know what WWII was all about, this will be too gripping. But eventually the leads all start to take on real roles, and they move from their training in the U.S. (it was filmed in Quebec City, actually), to behind enemy lines. This is then really great stuff.

Director Henry Hathaway followed this same format (even with the title) in the 1945 The House on 92nd Street and it has some of the same flaws, and the same kind of superb second half. And a year later he did a third in the same mode, Call Northside 777. It was a successful formula for a public learning about its own federal level spy and police forces, Hathaway was a really good director, and we all wish he had taken these films in the direction of Kiss of Death, which is a gem, but he didn't, probably because of producers with ideas of their own, and so we have this trio of offbeat films with only parts that are amazing. Which isn't so bad.

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.

James Cagney stars as the crafty leader of American secret agents of the 077 during World War II. The invasion is not far off and the Nazis have implanted one of their top spies into Cagney's unit. Cagney has to figure out which one of his people is a Nazi and then double cross the double agent with misinformation. The film is fairly interesting, but the characters are not fleshed out well enough, which almost makes sense due to the semi-documentary nature of the film. Still, Cagney is great at being Cagney, which makes it worth watching all the way to the film's explosive ending.

O.S.S. agents are in training for work behind enemy lines in WWII. Upon receiving his latest batch of trainees, training leader Bob Sharkey is informed one of the rookies is actually a German mole. Letting the mole continue thinking he is undetected, Sharkey feeds the mole false information about important upcoming operations. But as Sharkey arranges his agents missions, and that of the mole, things go wrong and Sharkey himself must go into occupied France and risk the wrath of the Gestapo at 13 Rue Madeleine.

13 Rue Madeleine is a very efficient and enjoyable War/Spy/Thriller, it's directed by multi genre helmsman Henry Hathaway and stars acting legend James Cagney as Sharkey. Tho playing a tough guy, this is quite far removed from the sort of roles that defined Cagney's career, he's ably supported by Richard Conte and Walter Abel, but in all honesty it's Cagney's film all the way. As many other reviewers have mentioned, the majority of the picture feels like a documentary, or more a sort of public service explanation on the History Channel, not a bad thing exactly, but the dulcet narration is something I personally could have done without. However once the picture nicely turns its attention to the crucial mission, things start heating up and the film becomes a film in the truer sense of the word. We are fully engaged with the central characters having been with them thru Sharkey's training school, and as the (fabulous) ending draws closer, it's hoped that the majority of viewers are as involved with the plot as I personally was. Because then when the end does come, it impacts the way the makers hoped it would.

A very commendable picture and certainly recommended to fans of Cagney, Conte and this type of movie. 7/10

Although Jimmy Cagney is the star of this film, he really takes a back seat during most of the picture. Instead, the story focuses on a team of OSS operatives as they are trained and then deposited behind enemy lines (FYI--the OSS was the precursor for the CIA). I especially liked watching how they were trained to blend in--such as learning to eat European-style (with the fork ALWAYS in the left hand). Cagney is ever-present during this training process and only comes to the forefront again when the mission appears to start unraveling and he goes in to rescue the team members. In between, the film centers on the team members and their efforts to destroy the nazi menace in France.

Biggest pluses--excellent writing, pacing and acting (in that order).