THE HOUSE ON 92nd STREET: Blu-ray (2oth Century-Fox, 1945) Kino Lorber
At the end of
World War II, Hollywood emerged as a leaner and meaner assembly line, where the
dreams previously dared to come true had suddenly taken a seemingly ‘wrong turn’
down much darker byways. While the froth that had sustained Tinsel Town throughout
the dirty thirties was still being produced, in its wake there were more
sobering entertainments that began to dominate movie screens; intensely emotional
melodramas and psychological horror movies that examined the struggles of life,
and crime pictures, usually featuring a strong stoic type, sleuthing and
slogging his way through the underbelly of ‘polite society.’ Although as yet
not collectively coined, the film noir movement had greatly influenced the look
of virtually every time-honored genre - even the woman’s weepy, and most
certainly, the drama and actioner. And Hollywood, perhaps conscious that at war’s
end, the world had changed – not altogether for the better – and even more acutely
aware returning G.I.’s would bring with them the emotional baggage of what they
had experienced abroad, sought, at least in part, to satisfy the public’s growing
need for more truth and realism at the movies. And thus, we come to Henry
Hathaway’s The House on 92nd Street (1945) – a picture that
could never have been made before, or even during the war; its subject matter -
foreign intervention threatening to topple America from within - too fancifully
grim and sinister for the public to digest. But at war’s end, with estimates
slowly begun to trickle into the public consciousness, that between 22,000,000 and
30,000,000 people had perished in the European theater of conflict, Hollywood’s
natural aversion in skirting the realities and horrors to tell more
romanticized stories about the war - Mrs. Miniver (1942) or Since You
Went Away - (1944) while it played live a continent away, now began to
reexamine these definitions of valor and sacrifice against the thought-numbing
human toll on society at large.
The House on
92nd Street was therefore a very important picture in its day, and one ‘personally
supervised’ by 2oth Century-Fox’s mogul and master storyteller, Darryl F.
Zanuck, who regarded it as something of a prestige project. Indeed, it received
the full complicity and backing of Washington’s Federal Bureau of
Investigations, with a cameo from its director, J. Edgar Hoover, who also
supplied real agents to play most of the agents in the movie. Zanuck, who had
begun his career as a newsman, implicitly understood the power of a good story –
one, firmly anchored in truth, and so, The House on 92nd Street
served as something of the public’s introduction to the FBI – an organization that
most knew virtually nothing about. It also provided both a back story and a
case file to whet the public’s appetite for a good yarn about counterespionage.
The screenplay by Barré Lyndon, Jack Moffitt and John Monks Jr., from a story
by Charles G. Booth, is actually based on the real-life case of William G.
Sebold, who became inveigled in a plot to dismantle the Duquesne Spy Ring in
1941, the largest convicted espionage case in U.S. history, resulting in 33
arrests, including Nazi spy master, Fritz Joubert Duquesne. Combining stock
footage shot in and around Washington D.C. with traditional sets constructed
back in L.A., The House on 92nd Street tries to achieve a
sort of uncanny verisimilitude regarding the particulars of this case, with names
changed to protect the innocent and perhaps avoid a few lawsuits – even from
the guilty.
We turn back the
clock to 1939; the eve of WWII, where all-American university student of German
extraction, Bill Dietrich (William Eythe) is cautiously approached by Nazi
recruiters to become an informant. Feigning interest, Dietrich instead notifies
the FBI of this probe, taken very seriously by Agent George Briggs (Lloyd Nolan,
playing a knock-off of Sebold). With Dietrich’s complicity, Briggs encourages him
to accept the recruiter’s offer. Traveling to Hamburg, Dietrich is given an
intense 6-month crash course in international espionage. Sufficiently trained,
he is sent back to the United States to set up radio contact on Long Island and
relay secret information on shipping arrivals, departures, destinations, and
cargo. Dietrich is also made paymaster for the spies presently operating at the
mysterious house on East 92nd Street in New York City. He is told
that only a certain ‘Mr. Christopher’ may alter the particulars of his
assignment. Sharing his microfilmed credentials with the FBI, Briggs decides to
alter them so Dietrich has open access to contact all of the spies directly. The
92nd St. residence, a multi-storied building, is using a dress shop on its main
floor, operated by Elsa Gebhardt (Signe Hasso), as its cover. Immediately
suspicious of Dietrich's high level of clearance, Elsa requests confirmation
from Germany. As no reply to her query
is forthcoming, she has no alternative but to allow Dietrich full disclosure. Alas,
Dietrich's other ‘legit’ contact, Colonel Hammersohn (Leo G. Carroll), denies
knowing the real identity of the illusive ‘Mr. Christopher’.
Meanwhile, in an
unrelated incident, a German spy is killed in a horrific traffic accident. On
his person, is found a cryptic message, suggesting Mr. Christopher will
contact him with developments on Process 97; an alarming development to Briggs,
as Process 97 is America's top-secret atomic bomb project. After the Japanese
attack Pearl Harbor, the U.S. is forced to enter the war. Most of the spies
Dietrich has already identified are immediately rounded up. However, Briggs
purposely neglects Gebhardt's spy ring, hoping it will eventually reveal the
true identity of Mr. Christopher. Growing ever more pensive, Gebhardt orders
Dietrich to transmit a key portion of Process 97 to Germany. However, in
preparing his broadcast, Dietrich takes notice of an innocuous cigarette butt
in Gebhardt’s ashtray. Knowing Gebhardt does not smoke, Dietrich smuggles the
butt out of her apartment and has it sent to the FBI for forensic analysis. The clue is traced to Luise Vadja (Renee Carson), whose ‘boyfriend’ is Charles Ogden Roper (Gene Lockhart),
a scientist working on Process 97. Under interrogation, Roper breaks down and
confesses to planting the last bit of his research inside a copy of Spencer's
First Principles at a nearby bookstore from where someone believed to be Mr.
Christopher will collect it. Having achieved their objective, Briggs orders the
immediate arrest of Gebhardt's ring. Alas, Gebhardt finally receives a reply
from Germany confirming her worst suspicions about Dietrich. Injecting him with
scopolamine to probe his mind for the rest of the story, she is, as yet,
unaware her building has already been surrounded by government agents. In the
ensuing struggle and frantic plans to make her escape, the house is set on fire
and Gebhardt, disguised as the elusive Mr. Christopher – a part she has played
all along - now makes a failed gesture to steal away in the night with the
vital papers on Process 97 retrieved from the bookstore. Mistaken as a
government agent by one of her own, Gebhardt is mortally wounded while scaling
the fire escape. The rest of the spies are rounded up by the FBI and Dietrich
is rescued from the blaze unharmed.
The House on 92nd
Street is part police procedural/part actioner and part documentary drama. Its
uneven screenplay and lack of any real stars in the leads is, perhaps, a hindrance
to its enduring popularity today, although, in hindsight, it definitely adds to
the ‘newsreel’ flavor of the piece. William Eythe delivers a credible
performance as the congenial young man whose head is supposedly turned by
foreign interests against America’s secret weapon. Eythe, a closeted homosexual
in life, began his career in live theater and on the radio before landing a
contract at Fox; his debut in The Ox-Bow Incident, followed by a brief
appearance in The Song of Bernadette (both made and released in 1943)
eventually leading to more plush parts in The Eve of St. Mark, and, Zanuck’s
super-production of Wilson (both in 1944). In hindsight, The House on
92nd Street really was Eythe’s ‘big break’ – the first picture for
which he was meant to ‘carry the load’ as a leading man. The picture’s success
led to a command performance given before King George VI, and a move to England
after Fox released him from his studio contract. But by 1948, Eythe was back in
pictures state’s side, and also appearing on Broadway and, later, television –
a very hard-working and prolific actor. Despite his heavy workload, Eythe somehow
never managed to break into ‘the big time’ – his popularity on the wane
by the late fifties. Tragically, Eythe died of hepatitis in 1957. He was only
33-years old.
The closest that
The House on 92nd Street has to ‘a star’ is Lloyd Nolan –
then, considered a plug n’ play actor’s actor, who could be counted upon to
give a credible, if hardly showy performance. Nolan would reprise the part of Briggs in Fox’s
The Street With No Name (1948), and eventually find a kind of immortality
as a popular supporting actor on many prominent TV shows throughout the late
seventies and early eighties. The House on 92nd Street was an
interesting anomaly – even for Fox. Clearly, director, Henry Hathaway and
Zanuck are interested in making a movie that feels like a documentary, or, at
least, possesses the testimonial clout of a vintage Movietone newsreel about
espionage circa 1939-40. The intrusive voice-over narration is supposed to
instill a sense of the ‘now’ into these fictional proceedings. Instead, it thoroughly
interrupts and even stalls the plot, offering obvious bits of information, such
as “Bill turned over his findings to the state department” even as we
are observing Bill doing just that on the screen. Honestly, is there any reason
why the audience could not figure out at least two thirds of the story line without
this play-by-play commentary?
Kino Lorber’s
Blu-ray release sports a 1080p transfer that is at least a decade old, and
derived from flawed elements that have not been afforded a more complete – and necessary
– restoration to spiffy them up for hi-def. The gray scale is sufficiently
rendered. Alas, there is an excessive amount of film grain during some of the
stock shots, and particularly in rear projection – forgivable, but never
entirely massaged into the more polished look of the scenes shot under optimal
lighting conditions inside a studio. This creates a decided disconnect in the
visual story-telling style that, likely was less noticeable in projection.
There is also a slight bit of edge enhancement detected and age-related
artifacts are everywhere. Contrast is okay, at best – with many of the outdoor
sequences appearing to have been artificially boosted. Overall, the image quality here has a fairly
dated look – neither boding well for the picture’s appeal as a fictional entertainment
or even as a pseudo-documentary. The DTS 1.0 audio is adequate. We get an audio
commentary from Eddie Mueller – well worth a listen – and an animated ‘stills’
gallery and theatrical trailer. Bottom line: The House on 92nd
Street – although an important picture in its day, does not exactly hold up
as a compelling entertainment when viewed today. The Blu-ray is just average,
and in spots, below that, in terms of overall quality. Judge and buy
accordingly.
FILM RATING (out
of 5 - 5 being the best)
3
VIDEO/AUDIO
3.5
EXTRAS
3
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