The House on 92nd Street

When this film was made in the 1940's, the ultimate evil that is Adolph Hilter and the Nazi movement was still a serious threat to our way of life. Lloyd Nolan, a major star of the 30's and 40's, gives his usual strong performance as FBI Agent Briggs, in charge of the Nazi spy case. Leo G. Carroll steals the movie playing the Nazi spymaster. Enjoy this film and remember why our fathers and grandfathers fought WWII. As a side note, real FBI agents appeared in this movie in support roles at the direction of J. Edgar Hoover, who gave his full co-operation to the producers.

Where in the world did they find hawk-nosed, beady-eyed Lydia St. Clair, the German Gestapo agent. One look from her, and I'd spill my guts in a flash. This is her only movie credit, so I'm guessing she had the same effect on the producers. Speaking of producers, Louis De Rochemont and TCF led the docu-drama trend that greatly influenced post-war crime drama. This is an early entry, and as a model of craftsmanship, there's none better, at least in my view. The location photography, FBI footage, and voice-over narration combine seamlessly with the melodramatic elements supposedly based on fact. Credit much of this to director Hathaway, one of Hollywood's supreme craftsmen.

Sure, the movie sometimes plays like an advertisement for the FBI. But if the data cited is correct, they had a lot to brag about in terms of counter-espionage. Notice, however, no mention is made of the thousands of Japanese-American citizens illegally interned on the West Coast. The Mr. Cristopher charade may be a gimmick, but it does build suspense as we guess the whereabouts of the mastermind. And when the "unveiling" finally comes, I suspect a few 1945 audiences were mildly startled. Seems a stretch to call this a noir since the lighting and atmosphere are naturalistic throughout. Anyway, as a blend of documentary style with story interest, it's hard to beat this tautly efficient little thriller.

In passing—check out the movie's initial release date, barely a month after the first public disclosure of the A-bomb following Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Looks to me like this required some furious re-writing and maybe some changes in Lockhart's role of research professor. No doubt inclusion of the new weapon was used to sell the film to information hungry audiences.

I'm glad one of my favorite movies The House on 92nd Street has been released on DVD and to read the reactions others have made about it. I first saw this movie when it was first released and I was about 11 years old. It made a great impression on me at the time. Of course it is much older now and so am I. My reaction to the revelation of the identity of Mr. Christopher came as an almost physical shock. I should add that at the time this movie came out the war had just ended and the bomb had been dropped only months before, and the radio made much of the nuclear race between Germany and the United States, so the 'now it can be told' aspect of the movie had a lot more meaning then. Also, we weren't very ambivalent about who the good guys and the bad guys were in the war (that didn't happen until Vietnam). I can see that the technology that seemed so cutting edge then is simplistic and dated by today's standards, but that doesn't hurt the movie if you take it in the context of its time. One comment I'd like to make: when Elsa first saw Dietrich's altered credentials she was rightly suspicious and sent for confirmation by courier from Hamburg. In the meantime he continued to operate for what seemed like months and the war started. How long did to get that confirmation anyway? By the way, I've seen the House and it was on 93rd street.

"The House on 92nd Street" is a 1945 film about the FBI's attempts to break up a spy ring during the war. A young man, William Dietrich (William Eythe), who has been recruited by the Nazis as a spy, informs the FBI of this and becomes their mole inside the organization. One of Dietrich's goals is to get the identity of the mysterious "Mr. Christopher" who gives all of the orders.

This is a black and white film with strong narration that probably had a great impact at the time of its release. Though the machinery used in the movie looks archaic now, back then it must have been fascinating for an audience to watch and seemed very high-tech. Plus some of the material being transmitted had to do with the top-secret atom bomb, which at the time of the film, had just been dropped.

The cast is small, consisting of Eythe, Lloyd Nolan, Leo G. Carroll, Signe Hasso, Gene Lockhart, and Lydia St. Clair. They're all solid. For a change, the women, Hasso and St. Clair, have the strongest roles in the film, and they give striking performances. Eythe was getting the big star build-up at 20th Century Fox. Since it was wartime, he could have made a place for himself at the studio the way that Dana Andrews did. However, when gay rumors reached Darryl Zanuck, Eythe's path became a rocky one, leading nowhere, as the studio continually demoted him and eventually got rid of him.

Well worth seeing.

This is the story of how the FBI supposedly cracked a Nazi espionage ring on the trail of Manhattan Project (the A-Bomb) in the early years of World War II. As a movie, its chief significance is that it kicked off a spate of semi-documentary movies paying tribute to one or another of the U.S. government's law enforcement agencies and celebrating Our Tax Dollars at Work. Such films became a staple of the noir cycle; a few of them even achieved distinction (T-Men, for instance).

William Eythe, a young American, is recruited by and trained in Germany to be a spy; in fact he works as a double agent for the FBI. The film, shot largely on location, traces the actions of the nest of vipers on New York's upper east side. Their unofficial master seems to be Signe Hasso, under cover of running a chic dress boutique. Her opposite number, who runs Eythe, is Lloyd Nolan (who was to reprise his role as Inspector Briggs in subsequent films).

The film's period flavor keeps it from seeming too dated, because the spying looks quite primitive to audiences spoiled by James Bond gimmickry and later, even more sophisticated, espionage thrillers. And, from a modern perspective, the smug boastfulness about the Bureau's -- and America's -- infallibility becomes a bit hard to swallow. There's little texture or nuance in the film, but, as a quasi-historical document, it exerts its own fascination.