Cloak and Dagger **** (1946, Gary Cooper, Robert Alda, Lilli Palmer) – Classic Movie Review 2601

Director Fritz Lang’s 1946 release stars Gary Cooper as mild-mannered science professor called Alvah Jesper who becomes an agent for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the World War Two forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency.

He plunges into danger when he is airlifted into Germany to grab hold of an Italian scientist who has been abducted by the Nazis to help them build the atom bomb.

Lang intended his slick and enjoyable World War Two wartime romantic espionage thriller to be more than just that. He planned it not only a tribute to OSS operations in occupied Europe but also a warning about the dangers of the atomic age. But it was re-edited and cut by Warner Bros – regrettably deleting scenes and dialogue – into a conventional spy drama, though with a suitably dark tone and plenty of rumbling undercurrents remaining.

As such, it is thoroughly involving and keeps up the tension. And it is carefully crafted and astutely acted. Cooper seems a tad shifty, perhaps befitting the role as Alvah, while Lilli Palmer is at her best as Gina, who leads the Italian partisans, along with Pinkie (Robert Alda).

Also in the cast are Vladimir Sokoloff, J Edward Bromberg, Ludwig Stossel, Helene Thimig, Marjorie Hoshelle, Dan Seymour, Marc Lawrence and James Flavin.

The title is based on the 1946 non fiction book Cloak and Dagger: The Secret Story of OSS by Corey Ford and Alastair MacBain. Former OSS agent E Michael Burke acted as technical advisor.

[Spoiler alert] The film originally had a different ending in which Jesper leads a group of American paratroopers into Germany to discover the remains of an underground factory, the bodies of dead concentration camp workers, and evidence the factory was working on nuclear weapons. Producer Milton Sperling thought the final scene ridiculous as the audience knew the Germans had no nuclear capacity.

Screenplay writers Ring Lardner Jr and Albert Maltz became two of the Hollywood Ten, accused of adding communist dogma to movie scripts such as this one that says the US could not keep nuclear secrets from the USSR. They were brought before HUAC, jailed and blacklisted during the American anti-communist witchhunts. These were dark days indeed.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2601

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