La grande minaccia

WALK A CROOKED MILE is the sort of brisk, documentary style espionage yarn so often made during the '40s, using narration to tell the story of two espionage agents (DENNIS O'KEEFE and LOUIS HAYWARD) assigned to track down whomever is responsible for leaking top secret information developed at a nuclear plant in California.

Most of the action takes place in San Francisco, where O'Keefe and Hayward discover that an artist (ONSLOW STEVENS) is putting coded information beneath his paintings when he receives it from a spy working for the government agency. The story traces how the spy ring operates and it is these details that give the film added interest before the spies are caught. All of the methods must seem dated by today's standards of F.B.I. work, but the manner of presentation is gripping and the clever cat-and-mouse game that is played between the agents and the spies is credible and fascinating.

It's smoothly directed by Gordon Douglas at a fast clip. RAYMOND BURR has his usual "bad guy" role as one of he spies, and LOUISE ALLBRITTON, CARL ESMOND, ART BAKER and CHARLES EVANS all make interesting suspects in the mystery behind the identity of the key traitor.

Well worth viewing.

Well-made political thriller. 1948 is the year Hollywood joined the anti-communist crusade, and there's no mistaking the bad guys-- Raymond Burr in a Lenin-like goatee, a sinister gathering of "comrades", and Hollywood's version of commie rhetoric about how the individual doesn't matter in the global scheme of things. Up to that point, the studios had been turning out generally pro-Soviet films in behalf of our WWII allies. But now, turning on a dime, we find out what perfidious characters we had been supporting. Oh well, as they say, in politics there are no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests.

Square-jawed Dennis O'Keefe makes for a dogged and intrepid FBI agent aided by Scotland Yard loan-out Louis Hayward. Together, they show what sterling fellows the English-speaking world turns out. They're on the trail of a covert Soviet spy sneaking out secrets from what is likely a bomb designing laboratory, though it's never specified. The plot rather prophetically anticipates the Klaus Fuchs affair of 1949, when the German-born spy was exposed as smuggling A-bomb secrets to the Soviets as early as 1945.

The suspense revolves around who the lab spy is and how he's getting the secrets out. It makes for entertaining, if workman-like, viewing. The familiar narrator Reed Hadley lends stentorian authority, along with some fine location photography. Together they impart a sense of reality to what are otherwise standard stereotypes and a melodramatic plot. Sure it's Hollywood's manipulative brand of political cinema, this time turned on our former friends. But at least it's watchable, minus the kind of cold-war hysteria that came to characterize other efforts of the period. All in all, an interesting and revealing reflection of its time.

Two things particularly drew me into seeing 'Walk a Crooked Mile'. One was the suitably foreboding title. The other was a nice concept in a genre that has always been a favourite, with many great films in it. Very interesting seeing Louis Hayward in a role never seen in this way before, or at least from my experience. The advertising is not much different from the advertising of other films in the genre or similar, but that didn't matter too much to me.

'Walk a Crooked Mile' is worth a viewing, even if in my view it isn't a must or a genre classic. For me, it was slightly above mixed feelings level. Really appreciated its pull no punches approach and was really surprised by how well Hayward came off, but also really wished that the ending was so much stronger than it turned out. There is a lot to like about 'Walk a Crooked Mile', but it is also a film that is fairly easy to criticise even when taking it for what it is (so not to expect high art).

It does have moments of stylish and moody photography and eerie lighting. The music is suitably ominous without over emphasising the mood. The direction is suitably assured and shows a command and understanding of the genre. Much of the script is fine, really liked its tautness and grit.

A tautness and grit that is present in the uncompromising and sometimes brutal storytelling, which has some nice tension and entertainment value. Its documentary noir style structure is fascinating and is handled very well, not gimmicky or too heavily used. Hayward is hard boiled yet also understated, nothing melodramatic. Dennis O'Keefe is even better and the two work very well together.

However, 'Walk a Crooked Mile' could have been more. The low budget does show at times in the sparse settings and some rushed looking transitions. Some of the dialogue over-explains a little too much, especially the overused narration.

Did wish too that the ending was less anaemic when it came to the suspense and that it was less predictable, that final decision is so cliched and tacked on to the point it jars and doesn't make sense.

Overall, decent. 6/10.

The film's stark and scrumptious cinematography is why you should watch. George Robinson and Edward Colman do an absolutely fantastic job. Noir fans will appreciate the film's use of shadows to create a tense mood.

The plot will hold your interest: with the help of a U. S. government worker(s) top secret atomic research work is being stolen by a communist spy ring. FBI agents, with the aid of Scotland Yard, work against time to stop the theft.

Louis Hayward plays the Scotland Yard agent and Dennis O'Keefe is his FBI counterpart. The two have chemistry together.

There is a blandness, though, to much of the crime investigation procedural part of the film - which is extensive. There's no love interest for any of the main characters. In fact, there's only one female character in the film and she doesn't have any substantial speaking lines until late in the movie.

Interesting docunoir about atomic/nuclear formulas being syphoned out of the Lakeview facility in the USA and finding their way into the iron curtain via the UK.

This is a very early example of FBI-Scotland Yard cooperation, showing the sophistication that already existed immediately after WWII, in spite of much more rudimentary spying technology than we have today. Amazing how sound was recorded on LPs, and 16 or 8mm cameras were used at stakeouts.

With Reed Haley as the narrator, the viewer gets the low-down on an intricate international operation to detect why fomulas are spirited out of the USA in art form -- paintings which, as agent O'Hara (O'Keefe) memorably points out, only suffer from having "too much red" in them.

As ever, O'Keefe is very convincing as an FBI agent, Hayward likewise as his Scotland Yard counterpart, and you can see that it is not the beginning of a beautiful friendship, but one that is already firmly in place.

Massey would have deserved a better part, and I found Onslow Stevens and Charles Evans very effective and chilling top villains. Allbritton is a beautiful woman, pity we see so little of her

Photography and action sequences top notch. Recommended.