La spia

If you can get through the first 15 minutes or so of this film, you're in for a real treat. Once the film gets going, its quite enjoyable, with scenes shot in Washington DC, Times Square, and most notably, the Empire State Building back when it was the tallest skyscraper in the world. The scenes on the 88th floor are beautifully shot, an then we get to travel higher to the 102nd floor and beyond. Anyone who loves New York will love this stuff. As a film, the gimmick of no dialogue works fairly well, though there are some scenes where it just doesn't seem natural that nobody would say anything (Milland's encounter with Gam at the flophouse screams for dialogue). But Milland carries it off for the most part and makes "The Thief" well worth a look.

The noir cycle generated many curios but none odder than this. Russell Rouse (who had just done D.O.A.) decided to direct an espionage drama that falls just short of 90 minutes without containing a single word of dialogue. It's not silent, however: footsteps echo on the cobblestones of Georgetown and the floors of the Library of Congress, cameras click over hush-hush documents at the Atomic Energy Commission, telephones ring (but are never answered). There's also a good score. The espionage concerns thermonuclear secrets, so this film would fall into the sub-category of the Anti-Commie propaganda film, except for the fact that the lack of words allows for no preaching; the skullduggery is all but abstract. And the silence can be seen as expressing the deep, deep underground of the cold-war spy. Questions remain: Ray Milland always does well with this sort of recessive, basically self-loathing character, but why engage an actor with such a distinctive voice to keep his trap shut? And Rita Gam, in her screen debut, has little to do but strike any number of provocative poses and suck sultrily on her cigarette (the "temptation" she poses to Milland is never resolved). The Thief has enough going for it to keep one's attention, but it's an experiment that would have been more welcome had 15 or 20 minutes been shorn off its running time.

Tense dark drama made in 1952 at the height of the Cold War about the shadowy world of espionage without a word of dialog makes "The Thief" a one-of-a-kind film.

Dr. Allan Fields, Ray Milland, has been spying for the Soviets by passing top secret documents from his position as a scientist at the Atomic Energy Commission, the AEC, to them. One afternoon in New York City one of Field's contacts is struck by a car and killed while he had in his possession a tin canister of microfilmed documents that Fields had given him. When the FBI finds out that the documents came from the AEC in Washington D.C they start to check out all those that are employed there and Fields seeing that the noose was closing in on him becomes a man on the run.

Good acting and great photography of Washington D.C and New York City with a dramatic and heart thumping action chase scene on top of the Empire State Building and the 86th floor observation deck that rivals the final moments of the movie "King Kong". The film also has something that was lacking in most spy movies at that time; a believable ending that wasn't overly contrived. Ray Milland showed in "The Thief" that he was as good a silent actor as a speaking one.

The Thief stands as the first American Film since Charlie Chaplin's City Lights without any spoken dialogue.

Directed by Russell Rouse this 1952 noir is a propaganda film without any of the leaden anti-Communist dialogue that other films of this type contain. In fact the film has no dialogue! It's funny how first impressions stay with you. When I first saw The Thief it was at a Film Noir series at the Film Forum Theater in New York.

The Thief stands out for its special way of objectifying the isolation of the central character with film elements such as mood-inducing lighting, scripting, and especially music.

The lack of dialogue and Ray Milland's marvelous performance visually communicating the angst and secretive nature of the lead character is something to see to appreciate.

What stands out in this film is the lack of dialogue. At the outset this motivates us to watch more closely than if we were given dialogue to help drive the action along.

With its blast of a raining phone in the very first frame of the film as the camera moves over to show us the anxious Allen Fields lying fully dressed on his bed waiting, we understand that sound and sight over spoken language is what will be the currency of this film.

Hats off to Ray Milland and the wonderful score because just as in the early films of the silent period all the plot points of the film are understood trough purely visual means, pushing the film to the level of pure cinema.

The musical score for the film that Herschel Burke Gilbert composed says volumes about the character Allen Fields, and his emotional state.

Gilbert received an Academy Award nomination for his music score for the film and one watching will tell you why. Gilbert creates swells and moods to support the facial expressions and other physical language that Milland utilizes to show us what is happening with Fields and his eroding state of mind.

The dialogue-less film is definitely a stylistic approach to this subject matter. It is very unusual but primarily because we are used to a dialogue-driven plotted film style.

The technique does begin to seem forced into the second half of the film especially in exterior scenes where one would normally hear people talking as ambient sound.

The scenes with the FBI would have some sort of dialogue, especially in those where agents are being prepped on who to investigate.

Once the viewer gets with the approach that the filmmaker is taking though, the lack of dialogue can be understood as part of the overall theme of he voice-less nature of the Spy character in films.

Some things are left unexplained though and this could have been added to create more depth in the story line. We never learn why Fields is stealing secrets for the enemy. Is he being paid? Is there a wife being held captive? These pieces of the puzzle may help. Without them the story feels poetic without substance.

Ray Milland gets extra credit for creating such a memorable performance. His Allen Fields seems cut from the same cloth as his character from The Lost Weekend, angst-driven without solution.

No one can drink whiskey or smoke a cigarette quite like Ray Milland, with his sense of exclusive attitude while simultaneously embroiled in some deep emotional turbulence.

For anyone interested in Film Noir styling taken to exceptionally expressive levels this film will show you things you may not have seen before.

The night exteriors are textbook noir examples of lighting and camera. In this case the ambient sounds of the Washington D. C. locations are contrasted well with those of the New York City locations, especially the wide shot of Milland's Allen Fields arriving in the beautiful Pennsylvania Train Station before it was demolished.

Although the interiors are stage sets there is attention paid to creating surroundings that support the 'silence' of spy Allen Fields especially the cage-like apartment where Fields waits for his final phone call.

Ray Milland is a nuclear physicist who's been selling top secret material to the Russians. His story is told here without dialogue in this very ambitious and rewarding little film. His performance and the film score work well together and keep the viewer's interest. It's amazing how so much can be told without the mechanics of speaking. And, for as many films as I've seen, the chase sequence is one of the most intense I've ever seen, primarily by its use of silence and Ray's intensity. If you've never seen this very unusual film, then you are missing one of the best examples of film noir, buoyed by its distinction of no dialogue, but well makes up for it with its grade-A treatment of the story and its ability to use its surroundings as part of the story. Another Ray Milland winner!