“This is the fourth and last of Fritz Lang’s American espionage films and it is certainly a strange one. Written by Albert Maltz and Ring Lardner Jr. who were later blacklisted for their Communist sympathies, the film’s anti-atomic sentiments have been expunged by the studio. As expected from Expressionist Lang the film looks wonderful but despite some thrilling moments it is on the whole uneven.
Inspired by the exploits of OSS operative Michael Burke this has Gary Cooper as a mild-mannered nuclear physicist who is attempting to smuggle a fellow physicist out of occupied Italy. He is aided in this by Italian partisans, one of whom is played by Lilli Palmer. Naturally, a romance blossoms…….
The character of Professor Jesper is surely one of the dullest heroes in film history which makes the casting of Gary Cooper a masterstroke. He carries it off wonderfully with his customary ease and we are with him all the way. He is especially sympathetic in his scenes with the marvellous Helene Thimig and Vladimir Sokolov and utilises the old charm with the double agent of Warner’s contract player Marjorie Hoshell who is straight out of a film noir.
His scenes with the Gina of Lilli Palmer just about work. There is certainly an emotional chemistry between them but alas not a physical one. As for Miss Palmer this is her first Hollywood film and proved to be a baptism by fire. Not only is her role as a traumatised bordering on paranoid resistance fighter extremely demanding, she was given a hard time by the director.
Lang was known to be a bully and like all bullies picked on those least able to fight back. At one stage the entire crew walked out in protest at his treatment of her. When filming ended he told her; “I’ll look after you in the cutting room.” To his credit he did and she comes out very well. Needless to say Herr Lang was respectful towards Mr. Cooper!
The scene that lingers longest and the one directed by the sadistic Lang with true relish is the fight between Cooper and the Italian fascist agent of Marc Lawrence. Their gruesome and vicious struggle is played out to the sound of an Italian street singer while the child’s toy ball bouncing down the stairs to the feet of the corpse is very effective and evidently a nod to his masterpiece ‘M’.
Lang never concealed his loathing of meddling Hollywood producers and here once again his original ending in which the Germans appear to have the atomic bomb, has been cut. The horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were of course all too recent and it is one of Life’s supreme ironies that ex-Nazi scientists were assisting America in its nuclear programme.
Despite its weaknesses this is still extremely watchable thanks to its charismatic cast, Lang’s mastery of light and shade and of course the sine qua non of a Warner’s film, Max Steiner’s score.”
