The House On 92nd Street

The House On 92nd Street
1945 - 20th Century Fox
Directed By Henry Hathaway



SYNOPSIS

William Dietrich (William Eythe) is fresh from an Ohio college and is drafted by Nazi agents to be a special agent for them in America. He immediately reports this to FBI Agent Briggs (Lloyd Nolan,) who sets him up as a special agent. Dietrich goes to train in Germany and returns to New York to help steal American secrets for the Nazis, all the while cluing the FBI in to the Nazi agents he is working with. The FBI must move quick as the Nazi agents are somehow getting and transmitting the secrets of Process 97... AKA the Manhattan Project.



MY THOUGHTS

This docu-drama is a relic of it's time but is still an entertaining and suspenseful film.
It tells a dramatic story while also aiming for documentary-style realism and uses stock footage, a newsreel announcer-sounding narrator, and uses the actual locations where the real action took place.
This was similar in style to director Henry Hathaway's later film Call Northside 777 starring James Stewart. The style is definitely dated and several early film noir were done like this and Northside, along with He Walked By Night (which inspired TV's Dragnet) but it fits the material.

The acting is wooden all around, with everyone going for a direct realistic style, adding to the documentary feel. Lloyd Nolan is a strong presence, though his part lacks the witty banter he had in the Detective Michael Shane film series and his debut role in G-Men as an FBI agent (and also the film that named this blog.)

The film generates real suspense as it approaches the climax... not knowing if the Dietrich character will make it when the Nazis find out his secret... and the identity of Mr. Christopher.

It was also great to see the FBI's research methods in the pre-computer era in detail. They had a much more difficult job than they do now with all of today's increased automation, and the old technology was fascinating to see.
The story also has resonance today as you can imagine the FBI working diligently trying to track down terrorist sleeper cells.. like the Nazi ones of days past.

Definitely worth checking out.