Mjeteconer Just perfect...

LouHomey From my favorite movies..

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Alex da Silva That's what is situated at 13, Rue Madaleine. You basically don't want to go there. The film is a semi-documentary narrative covering what goes on in the spy world. It is narrated in this way for way too long and throws in fictional characters as portrayed by actors. It also rockets information at you in that quickfire manner that irritates. We get Jimmy Cagney clowning around in his clown-style of acting – throwing dialogue at us in that incredibly unrealistic fashion that he seems to think passes as acting. We won't mention his looks but, obviously, there are sections of this film where you just laugh at him. Richard Conte comes off best in terms of actual acting and watch out for an appearance by Karl Malden as a pilot – didn't expect that, but he is convincing as always. The film is predictable, it's a bit boring, and there is nothing to really care about as we pretty much know what is going to happen. The good guys win. End of narrative.When I was a spy, I never got caught because I worked alone. Granted, nothing really happened but I'm still alive to tell the tale. I was more involved in propping up bars across London and seeing if anyone ever approached me. No-one ever did except the bartender to tell me it was last orders and time to go home. So, I quit and decided to do something else. I was only really part-time anyway.A couple of scenes stand out in this film – the plane jump where there is actual tension thanks to a staring Conte and the ending which provides us with a scary giggling Cagney. It's an OK film but I expected better.

Joxerlives A truly remarkable film for its' time when WW2 was still yesterday's news and its' grim realities were still universally accepted. You wonder if today's audiences would be prepared to accept the extreme subterfuge, moral ambiguities and agonising judgement calls such a conflict would demand? Should they simply arrest the Nazi agent or use him to feed false information to the Germans about the liberation of Europe even if this means endangering the other agents working alongside him? Should the French resistance fighters trust Cagney's character in his claim to be an Allied agent or simply execute him as a quisling? How far should they go in collaborating with the Germans to maintain their cover against helping the Allies? To judge by some of the controversy surrounding the 'War on Terror' I would venture no?James Cagney is excellent here, probably happy to ditch his gangster persona and be able to demonstrate his martial arts prowess as a judo black belt during the training sequences. Of the supporting cast the Nazi agent is very good, really convincing you by his ingenuity in the theft exercise sequence, maybe they should have left his real identity a mystery until later in the film? The clean cut all American boy by contrast is unceremoniously killed off-screen, plummeting to his death due to a sabotaged parachute line, in a lesser film he would have been the hero but the cynical message here is that his sort of naivety is fatal as is the romantic attachment of the French agent to her missing husband (you really suspected her of being the Nazi spy, blackmailed by threats to him into working for them).The training sequences at the OSS are very realistic and whilst they may seem clichéd now you must remember they must have been a revelation to the audiences of 1947 (as the intro explains the OSS was a revolutionary departure for the US intelligence services, achingly liberal America hugely reluctant to create the same sort of spy agency as other countries, it taking Pearl Harbour to jar the wider population from their complacency and understand the necessity).Very ruthless for its' time, Cagney gives a big speech about how the Queensberry rules are out the window and that this is a fight to the finish. When he is later captured (his enemy prying the suicide pill from his hand) his erstwhile pupil reminds him of that speech as he is tortured. Cagney practices what he preaches, even killing men with his bare hands and later ends up being killed by his own side just to shut him up. EVERYONE dies, even the heroine which must have been very rare at the time.So all told a realistic and impressively accurate representation of what the OSS got up to during WW2.

LCShackley The weakness of this film is that it hesitates between being a gung-ho patriotic documentary about our wonderful secret service, and being an actual spy/adventure film. The first 25 minutes is pure exposition, in the most dreary and pedestrian fashion. (Who really wants to watch recruits fill out forms and do exercises?) A good, taut spy thriller would have condensed that into five minutes of set-up and then let the action begin.There are plenty of good moments once the characters arrive in Europe and the plot begins to roll, but it all happens too late. There are other weaknesses as well, like Sam Jaffe's lame French accent, or the all-too-abrupt ending.Besides Cagney's usual captivating performance, there are three near-debuts by men who were on the cusp of stardom: Red Buttons, Karl Malden, and E. G. Marshall, for whom this was their 2nd or 3rd film role. Don't blink or you'll miss them.I wonder how this film would play in today's anti-spy environment in the USA. The media and the left do all they can to make us despise and suspect our undercover operatives. Audiences in 1946 would have been expected to cheer these mavericks who, according to Cagney, were supposed to throw their morality out the window in order to accomplish their goals.

blanche-2 James Cagney stars in "13 Rue Madeleine," a routine WW II spy drama also starring Richard Conte, Annabella, and a several familiar faces in smaller roles: Sam Jaffe, Karl Malden, and E.G. Marshall. Done in semidocumentary style, Cagney plays the head of a U.S. spy cell, but the cell is known to have a Nazi in its midst. He is not eliminated so that he can be fed the wrong date for D-Day. When he kills one of the other spies, Cagney has to go in as a replacement.Despite some nice performances, notably from Cagney and Conte, the film under Henry Hathaway's direction was quite slow; he was lumbered with a script where it was difficult to develop any feelings for most of the characters, as they were underdeveloped. There were some good scenes, particularly the ones with Jaffe's character and the French resistance. Darryl F. Zanuck brought the pretty, petite Annabella over from France to star her in films, unaware that she would fall in love with his top male star, Tyrone Power. When he tried to discourage the relationship by sending her back to France to do some films, she refused to leave her man, thus finishing her as far as Zanuck was concerned. It's a shame because although you can't tell in this movie, Annabella was an excellent actress, as she would prove on the stage. It's fun to see Karl Malden and E.G. Marshall in small parts.The end of the film is powerful, but I prefer "OSS," also a small, semidocumentary film - catch that one if you have a chance.