The harsh realities of the Second World War influenced Hollywood crime films through two, sometimes conflicting, trends. Their content became, figuratively and literally, darker, developing a style that would become known as “film noir”. On the other hand, a number of mid-1940s crime films discarded Hollywood’s artificiality in an extreme fashion and embraced a realism that led them to be branded “semi-documentary”.
One of the best-known and most successful examples of the latter trend is The House on 92nd Street, a 1945 spy thriller directed by Henry Hathaway. Made during the final months of the war, The House on 92nd Street is based on a real story that took place a few years earlier and represented one of the greatest triumphs in FBI history.
The plot deals with the efforts of FBI agents, led by Special Agent Briggs (played by Lloyd Nolan), to catch “Christopher”, the mysterious leader of a German spy ring in the USA. Their key asset in this task is Bill Dietrich (played by William Eythe), a brilliant university student of German descent who, in 1939—when the USA and Nazi Germany were still at peace—was approached by the Nazis to work for them. He immediately contacted the FBI and later volunteered to become a double agent. He visits Germany, where he attends a spy school in Hamburg. Upon returning to America, he goes to New York City, where he gets in touch with other German agents, including dress designer Elsa Gebhardt (played by Signe Hasso) and veteran spy Colonel Hammersohn (played by Leo G. Carroll). Dietrich is tasked with operating a radio station on Long Island to transmit information gathered by spies. He sets up a short-range station, which relays that information to a long-range station run by the FBI. As this deception continues, Briggs’ investigation becomes crucial to the war effort because the German spies have become aware of “Process 97”, a top-secret US government project involving the creation of an atomic weapon. Dietrich must find the identity of “Christopher” so that his ring can be dismantled before it can provide precious information to Nazi Germany.
The House on 92nd Street holds the distinction of being one of the first Hollywood live-action films to use the US atomic bomb as part of its plot. When the film was actually produced, its creators, like almost everyone else in the world, had no clue about the Manhattan Project; all references to nuclear weapons were hastily added into the voice-over narration after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The actual espionage affair that served as the basis for the plot occurred in 1941 and involved a ring of spies and saboteurs led by Fritz Joubert Duquesne. Its dismantling shortly before Pearl Harbor more or less ended any German covert activity in the United States. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was quite proud of that achievement and used it to promote himself and his agency through a propaganda film. The FBI showed unprecedented levels of co-operation with 20th Century Fox, allowing the depiction of its files, secretly made films, and forensic techniques, and having actual FBI agents appear as extras. This kind of reconstruction, in a way similar to true-crime documentaries we might see on various television channels and streaming services today, found the perfect producer in Louis de Rochemont, creator of The March of Time newsreels. He matched documentary footage with explanatory narration, while director Henry Hathaway insisted on using authentic locations instead of artificial studio sets in the live-action segments. The result is a live-action film that looks and feels like a documentary, which is why it is sometimes seen as one of Hollywood’s first true docudramas.
While this semi-documentary approach, mixed with propaganda and celebration of the FBI as an efficient and valuable protector of national security, found its audience in post-war America, viewers today are more likely to find The House on 92nd Street lacking as a proper spy thriller. Much of that lies in a script that adheres to the rather unglamorous realities of espionage only to artificially spice things up near the end, including scenes of interrogation, shootouts, and what would have been a rather bold and unexpected plot twist by 1940s Hollywood standards. Many of the film’s problems might be attributed to William Eythe, who doesn’t deliver anything other than good looks as the semi-protagonist. The supporting cast, which includes Leo G. Carroll, a veteran of Hitchcock’s films, is much more impressive, and the same can be said of Swedish actress Signe Hasso as the ice-cold and ruthless female spymaster. Character actor Lloyd Nolan, on the other hand, delivers the goods as a no-nonsense FBI agent.
The House on 92nd Street was successful at the box office, and Nolan reprised his role three years later in The Street with No Name, a thriller dealing with organised crime. Other crime films copied its approach, most notably Boomerang! and The Naked City. Today’s audience, at least those with little interest in history, are more likely to see this film as a curiosity rather than a particularly remarkable piece of genre cinema.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
_
Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com
Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/
Leofinance blog @drax.leo
InLeo: https://inleo.io/signup?referral=drax.leo
Stars Arena: https://www.starsarena.com/?ref=draxblog
Unstoppable Domains: https://unstoppabledomains.com/?ref=3fc23fc42c1b417
Hiveonboard: https://hiveonboard.com?ref=drax y
Bitcoin Lightning HIVE donations: https://v4v.app/v1/lnurlp/qrcode/drax
Rising Star game: https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=drax
1Inch: https://1inch.exchange/#/r/0x83823d8CCB74F828148258BB4457642124b1328e
BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG
ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7
