13 Rue Madeleine
Directed by Henry Hathaway
Written by John Monks Jr. and Sy Bartlett
1947/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
First viewing/Netflix rental
[box] Charles Gibson: 22 potential agents. Most of them have a foreign background. All of them can speak French. One of them can speak German.[/box]
An enjoyable Fox film noir in the semi-documentary style about U.S. intelligence efforts in World War II.
A voice-over narrator sets up the process leading to the creation of the OSS and the recruitment and training of its first class of secret agents. Their instructor is Bob Sharkey (James Cagney) a tough former businessman with years of experience in Berlin. He is advised that one of his students is a German agent. His task is to identify the spy, who is then to be unwittingly used to convey false information about American planning for the D-Day invasion back to the Nazis. Sharkey intuits early on that Bill O’Connell (Richard Conte) is the bad apple based on his unexpected talents at the game. O’Connell’s roommate is assigned to accompany him on a fake mission into Holland. Unfortunately, O’Connell spots the ruse.
Now the only man sufficiently trained for the actual mission is Sharkey himself. He must stay one step ahead of O’Connell and make contact with an elusive French resistance leader. His life is in danger throughout. With Annabella as a beautiful OSS communicator and Sam Jaffe as the mayor of a French town.
This is entertaining if not great. Cagney is good as always and unforgettable in the classic Cagney style at the end. Conte makes a totally unconvincing German but is so dynamic we don’t mind too much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7yaT7OCwVA
Trailer
