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Spinning clock and spider's web promptly announce the Langian element, for the rest Jules Dassin shows what he's learned under Hitchcock's tutelage. A cozy New York bookshop, the owner (Conrad Veidt) is a meek soul, at his most excitable when contemplating a rare new stamp. ("I suppose all of us collectors are lunatics.") From the old country comes the estranged brother, the German consul operating a Nazi sabotage network and blackmailing his sibling into collaboration. Evil Veidt is the familiar monocle-wearing sneerer and Nice Veidt is softened by gray whiskers and round specs, the switcheroo after a scuffle and a bullet is concurrent with Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be. "Something has changed," the masquerade is out of The Prisoner of Zenda or Ford's The Whole Town's Talking, "an excellent performance, Baron." The toll of espionage has a traitor's burning note dissolving to the light bobbing on an enemy U-boat, torpedoes streak the oceanic screen as they rush toward their target. The almighty dollar is the only patriotism of the grinning skunk (Marc Lawrence), the old butler (Frank Reicher) meanwhile voices the Good German's position: "We do what we are told because we must." Most tellingly, the Dutch agent (Ann Ayars) whose zeal ("I felt like a combination of Joan of Arc and Charlotte Corday") has withered in the face of the Reich's reality. Sacrifice is the way out for the hero trapped in a role, Lady Liberty fills the departing view. "This is a moment in a lovely shadow. Let's not turn a light on it." With Dorothy Tree, Ivan F. Simpson, William Tannen, Martin Kosleck, Sidney Blackmer, and Moroni Olsen. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |