The House on 92nd Street **** (1945, William Eythe, Lloyd Nolan, Signe Hasso, Gene Lockhart, Leo G Carroll) – Classic Movie Review 8226

The 1945 fact-based film noir spy thriller The House on 92nd Street was made with the help of the FBI. It tells the story about the US chase after a German spy ring in Washington seeking US atom secrets. Charles G Booth won an Oscar for Best Original Story. 

Director Henry Hathaway’s 1945 black and white fact-based film noir spy thriller The House on 92nd Street was made with the help of the FBI, which provided archive footage for the 20th Century Fox production, and whose director, J Edgar Hoover, appears during the introductory montage. And the FBI agents seen in Washington DC are played by real agents. It was mostly shot in New York City, was released in the US on 10 September 1945 shortly after the end of World War Two.

The House on 92nd Street tells the story about the American chase after a German spy ring in Washington and New York City, which is trying dig out US atom secrets. In 1939 US student Bill Dietrich is recruited by Nazis because of his German heritage but notifies the FBI, and Agent George Briggs tells Dietrich to play along. So, after six months of spy training in Hamburg, he returns to the US to set up a radio station on Long Island to relay secret shipping information, as well as to be paymaster to the spies there who meet regularly at a house on East 92nd Street in New York City.

Charles G Booth won the 1946 Oscar for Best Original Story for his story. The screenplay is by Barre Lyndon, Charles G Booth, John Monks Jr and Jack Moffitt. It also won an Edgar Award in 1945 from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Motion Picture Screenplay for Charles G. Booth, Barre Lyndon and John Monks Jr.

William Eythe takes the lead as a double agent for the FBI, the undercover Fed man Bill Dietrich, pretending to be one of Elsa Gebhardt (Signe Hasso)’s gang of spies, and Lloyd Nolan plays the FBI boss, Inspector George Briggs. Hitchcock’s favourite character actor Leo G Carroll is also aboard as Colonel Hammersohn, and Gene Lockhart plays Charles Ogden Roper.

The House on 92nd Street is grippingly made on the real locations by Hathaway, and producer Louis de Rochemont effectively brings his March of Time documentary techniques to bear in a fictional film, a ground-breaking semi-documentary style that was later much copied films, in films like The Naked City and Boomerang.It is the first film produced by Louis de Rochemont (January 13, 1899 – December 23, 1978).

Also in the cast are Lydia St Clair, Reed Hadley, Mike Evans, William Post Jr, Harry Bellaver, Bruno Wick, Harro Meller, Charles Wagenheim, Alfred Linder, Renee Carson, Carl Benson, Tom Brown, Edgar Dearing, Paul Ford, Rusty Lane, E G Marshall, George Shelton and Alfred Zeisler.

The film is based on the real-life case of William G Sebold, who was involved in bringing down the Duquesne Spy Ring in 1941, the largest convicted espionage case in US history. On 2 January 1942, 33 Nazi spies, including the ring leader Fritz Joubert Duquesne, were sentenced to more than 300 years in jail.

William Eythe’s character of Bill Dietrich is based on the FBI double agent William G Sebold, Signe Hasso’s character of Elsa Gebhardt is based on the spy Lilly Stein, Gene Lockhart’s character of Charles Ogden Roper is based on the spy Herman Lang who delivered the top secret Norden bombsight to Germany, and Leo G Carroll’s character of Colonel Hammersohn is inspired by the spy ring leader Captain Fritz Joubert Duquesne.

Lloyd Nolan returns as Inspector Briggs in the sequel, The Street with No Name (1948), in which Briggs and the FBI agents take on organised crime.

The house used in filming was at 53 East 93rd Street in New York City but it is now a pathway leading to premises behind the original house.

The cast are William Eythe as Bill Dietrich, Lloyd Nolan as Agent George A Briggs, Signe Hasso as Elsa Gebhardt, Gene Lockhart as Charles Ogden Roper, Leo G Carroll as Colonel Hammersohn, Lydia St. Clair as Johanna Schmidt, William Post Jr as Walker, Harry Bellaver as Max Cobura, Bruno Wick as bookstore owner Adolf Lange, Harro Meller as Conrad Arnulf, Charles Wagenheim as Gustav Hausmann, Alfred Linder as Adolf Klein, Renee Carson as Luise Vadja, E.G. Marshall as Attendant at Morgue, Elisabeth Neumann-Viertel as Freda Kassel, Sheila Bromley as Beauty Parlour Customer Carl Benson, Tom Brown, Edgar Dearing, Paul Ford, Rusty Lane, E G Marshall, George Shelton and Alfred Zeisler.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8226

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