Thursday, October 27, 2011

1946 - CLOAK AND DAGGER, spy vs spy stuff from Fritz Lang


Gary Cooper is a scientist working on the Manhattan project when he is sent on a secret mission by the OSS to rescue an Italian scientist.  The story is very episodic with Cooper zipping along from one spy caper to another.


This is the kind of spy film that Fritz Lang could film on auto pilot and probably did.  Lang was one of the inventors of the modern espionage film. Herr director Lang loads the film up with a lot  of atmosphere and suspense.  He's also good at all this sneaking around spy stuff since his first dip into the genre with Spione in 1928


Gary Cooper was a rather odd choice to play a scientist.   The intention seems to have been to have an all American male mixed up with Nazi spies.  Cloak and Dagger shows how a plain speaking guy can triumph over these devious Teutonic devils.  Cooper does have a very cool fight scene with a Nazi agent which is pretty brutal for 1946.


Except for a boring love plot that brings everything to a halt for about 20 minutes, Cloak and Dagger zips along pretty well.

106 minutes.

No comments: