Rua Madeleine 13

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.

Very interesting war drama starring James Cagney as a secret agent that has to infiltrate Nazi headquarters and double cross an enemy spy that has slipped into his own unit. The discovery of a German missile site location is the main objective. Cagney is air lifted into France and has trouble convincing French freedom fighters that he is there to loosen the Nazi strangle hold.

The cast is full of fine players: Richard Conte, Sam Jaffe, E.G. Marshall, Red Buttons, Karl Malden, Roland Winters and the lovely Annabella.

A great black and white flick evocative of the 40s. Catch it on AMC.

I liked this movie. The plot concerns James Cagney as an OSS Type agent (I believed that for some reason the producers of this movie could not actually reference the term OSS). Cagney is one of the chief instructors in a US spy school (all the action happens in World War Two). Cagney finds out there is a top German agent going through this school. Cagney decides to let the German agent finished the training course and let him (German agent) parachute into occupied France (so the enemy agent will give the Germans false information). All this happens shortly before D-Day. However, the operation goes sour and Cagney has to parachute in to try to save the day.

I won't comment anymore on the plot as to not spoil the movie.

Probably the best World War Two spy/counterspy movies I have seen. I rate it high marks, very high marks indeed.

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).

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.