This independent 1941 film has a sizable cast of known actors of the day. It's one of just a few films Hollywood made about Nazi espionage in the Americas. This flm is fictional, but German espionage was very real in the U. S. and Canada.
"International Lady" was released in the U. S. and the UK in mid-October of 1941. The U. S. would enter the war in less than two months, after the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor. But U. S. involvement before that was extensive. It provided weapons and material for Great Britain and Russia. The U. S. supplies were crucial to the Allied war effort. They knew it, and Nazi Germany knew it. That's why German espionage worked feverishly to try to disrupt the American supply lines.
Within days after the U. S. entered the war, 33 members of the Duquesne spy ring were sentenced to death. It was organized in the late 1930s, and many of its members had civil service and government jobs. It was the largest Nazi spy ring broken up in the U. S.
This film doesn't directly name the Nazis or Germany as the enemy. The plot centers on British and American cooperation in routing a spy ring. But it also has some music, romance and comedy. The latter is in a friendly tete-a-tete between two Allied agents. Tim Hanley is an FBI agent and Reggis Oliver is from Scotland Yard. George Brent plays Hanley and Basil Rathbone plays Oliver.
Before WW II, U. S. intelligence work was done by the FBI and special offices of the Army and Navy. The British had its intelligence agencies - MI 6 and the Special Operations Executive (SOE). The American CIA didn't come into existence until after the war. It took over the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which had been set up in June 1942. So, before the U. S. entered the war, Scotland Yard and the FBI likely would have been the respective agencies of the two countries to coordinte efforts to uncover German espionage.
Ilona Massey plays Carla Nillson, a famous Norwegian singer who also was a German agent. This seems odd because Norway and its people were mosty opposed to the Nazis who had invaded ther country. Instead, Massey might have been cast as a Hungarian or Austrian singer. She was born in Hungary, and began her singing career in those countries.
Massey never achieved stardom in Hollywood, but she was a very good actress. She also had a beautiful soprano singing voice. This film has just two short scenes of her singing. She sang and starred in two Hollywood musicals that she made with Nelson Eddy. She is probably best known for those musical films - "Balalaika" of 1939, and "Northwest Outpost" of 1947.
Other prominent actors of the day in this film are Gene Lockhart, George Zucco, Frederick Worlock, Charles Brown and Clayton Moore (who played the Lone Ranger).
Before WW II, spying was something more mythical than real to an American public. But, within a few years after the end of the war, the scandals of widespread Soviet Union espionage surfaced in the U. S., Canada, and Great Britain.
The light-hearted relationship between the Brent and Rathbone characters works well for this film. It's an interesting and entertaining spy thriller with doses of light comedy, romance and some pleasant music.
A favorite line in the film is when the FBI chief is talking to an Army colonel on the phone. He says, "But that's taking a big chance." The colonel replies, "What do you think armies do?" And, when Reggis Oliver visits the FBI office with Tim Hanley, the Brit is greeted by an overly exaggerated dose of American slang of the period. FBI trainee, Bud (unlisted), says, "Scotland Yard, gee. That sorta sends me wacky. Oh, the brain said PDQ. Better breeze in." Reggis Oliver, to Tim Hanley, "He talks in code, doesn't he?"
