Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

Wordiezett So much average

Noutions Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

mark.waltz Call it a war on espionage, a war on terrorism, a war for world peace. It's a serious example of the horrors of what evil will do to destroy freedom and create anarchy. This starts off with the most horrifying murder, that of a scientist who has created a tracking devise to prevent our ships and oilers from being detected. The enemy uses it for just the opposite, to be able to track tankers and destroy them so bombers cannot be re- fueled. When radio engineers are let go from their positions out of suspicion of being part of this espionage ring, one of them (Richard Arlen) unknowingly becomes involved with the villains, putting both the government and the bad guys on his trail.A subplot involving Arlen's niece being in surgery sugar-coats the drama which at its best has elements of film noir and at its weakest, elements of DrKildare. Some of the chase sequences with Arlen desperate to get the goods away from the Japs and Nazi's is close to what Dick Powell was trying to do in the same year's "Murder My Sweet". Wendy Barrie is along for the ride as a government agent who at first follows Arlene around and later tries to help him. One dimensional villains give a predictability to this interesting and often complex drama that isn't overloaded with war propaganda and is at its best when it focuses on the important elements of the story and gets off the unnecessary soap involving the little girl. More psychologically gripping than action packed, it ranks slightly higher than most of the propaganda filled action films released through Pine Thomas at Paramount around the same time.

Robert J. Maxwell It's a hurried story of enemy spies sending signals to German U-boats offshore about the sailing of American cargo ships down the coast. Of course it's low budget and rude but I kind of liked it. (The Morse code used is real, not just gibberish. That is, somebody CARED.) It's 1942 and the US is having a tough time with so many freighters and tankers being sunk off the coast. And they were being sunk in numbers, too. The U-boats called it the second "happy time." But it didn't require Nazi spies. The US had just entered the war and unlike Britain had no clear idea of how to proceed with the business of protecting its shipping. The coast was considered safe from submarines because of the submarine's short cruising range. But they were supplied mid way across the Atlantic by Milchkühe, "milk cows." The cities along the coast -- Boston, New York, Charleston, and the rest -- left their lights on at night, so U-boats could silhouette our ships easily. It was so easy for the U-boats that the crews sometimes greeted survivors and distributed food to the lifeboats. "Charge this to Churchill." In this movie, the FBI, realizing that the unnecessary transmitter must be tiny and portable, and must be carefully attended, sees to it that dozens of radio engineers are fired, hoping that one will be approached by the Nazis. Richard Arlen is one of the experts fired and the Nazis offer him a job which, all unwittingly, he accepts.True. It's as improbable as all hell. Furthermore, these white-collar types lead stuffy lives. They all wear suits and ties, their shoes are shined, and their manners unimpeachable. Dwight Frye ("Renfield") is cast as a Nazi agent. The non-diegetic music is out of a Saturday-afternoon serial, popular at the time. But please, let's not get off on a tangent. Let's stick to events, shall we? It's a little puzzling that after the FBI's machinations that result in the firing of all these radio experts, those that are offered jobs are treated as potential traitors. After all, they've done nothing but legally exercised their skills. Frankly, I didn't get the logic. But in any case, the lead character, Richard Alrlen, a dull actor, is followed by an FBI agent, Wendy Barrie. He falls in love with her fifteen minutes after they first meet. The evildoers try to steambath Arlen and Barrie to death. It doesn't work. It's dumb but comforting, like hearing a Kindergarten child recite the ABCs flawlessly and everyone is happy.

Zoooma It's a shame someone would equate this film to a propaganda reel. Unnecessary jingoism was part of American culture at the time. Only three brief instances of possible propaganda exist here -- 1) when our protagonist says he wouldn't want to join the New World Order because he doesn't like their tactics. Saying that is a bad thing? I guess it was not fair since we didn't get a Nazi response to how their way of life really is. 2) the quote over the intercom "You know what to do, boys" when the air squadron heads out for a combat mission. Unnecessary cheerleading in a movie, yes, but part of American film culture at the time. 3) at the end, when our antagonist becomes an American citizen, he says "We know our way of life is best, and we're fighting to keep it that way." Again, should the movie have been fair to Nazis by giving their point of view on their way of life? Seriously?!? Sometimes we know wrong is wrong and there doesn't need to be a defense of it. Therefore, not propaganda.Lastly, this movie does NOT defend the right to be an illegal alien. Nothing is illegal about our antagonist. He's a legal alien but not a citizen. Illegal status never once enters the conversation.Overall, an okay, swift moving crime/war drama that isn't very memorable but definitely not a terrible 76 minutes.

Michael O'Keefe Director Frank McDonald takes Maxwell Shane's screenplay and uses World War Two-era paranoia to make a nice, swift crime drama. Well experienced radio engineer Lee Deerhold(Richard Arlen)is fired from his job at a time when people are pinching pennies and looking for any kind of job. He is all part of an FBI scheme to unwittingly infiltrate a gang of Nazi saboteurs, who have stolen a recently developed small radio transmitter. Deerhold is to gain the confidence of the Nazis as he "fine tunes" the stolen transmitter that is to be used to send top secret shipping schedules to an offshore Japanese submarine nest. Deerhold realizes that he is caught in a trap, when he is told of his own involvement with the government and begins running from the Nazis with their newly calibrated "code sender". The story moves rather quickly, because it only runs 67 minutes. Filmed completely in Los Angeles. Other players: Wendy Barrie, Nils Asther, John Miljan, Patsy Nash, Roger Pryor and Dwight Frye.