Wednesday, June 05, 2013

The House on 92nd Street (1945)

Our old favorite Lloyd Nolan stars in this one, although William Eythe gets as much screen time. It is told in the semi-documentary style that was used quite a bit during the war years. The FBI is watching a group of German spies who are recruiting American Nazis as spies. Eythe is a college student who is approached by the Germans, and reports it to the FBI. He is enlisted as a counter-agent.

A man is hit by a car. He dies, but before the ambulance gets there, another man picks up his briefcase and walks off. He says only "Christopher" before he dies. They learn that the dead man had obtained information regarding the US nuclear program. By now Eythe has entered the German intelligence program and has been given an assignment. It requires him to go to a five-story dwelling on 92nd Street where he meets Signe Hasso and her organization. He opens an office and makes contact with Leo Carroll. Then he sets up a short wave transmitter to communicate with Germany. He was the pay-off man for German agents, which meant they had to come to him.

Then came Pearl Harbor, and most enemy agents were rounded up; but Hasso and Carroll were deliberately left alone. Hasso gives him a big message to send to Germany that comes from the big boss in America, whom no one has seen. Hasso is suspicious of him and has him tailed. The contents of the message is so important that a distinguished physicist is rushed to Washington to examine it, and he confirms that it is the real thing. They make slight changes to corrupt the message before it is transmitted, and begin to watch all the nuclear plant's employees closely to try to find the leak. They finally establish that there is a memory expert who has been taking out the information in his head. Then Hasso learns that Eythe is not their agent, and sends her stooges after him. They work him over and finally give him truth serum. Fortunately Nolan and the FBI men rush to the rescue just in time. One of her own agents shoots Hasso through a haze of tear gas.



 
Eythe


Hasso

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