13 Rue Madeleine
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Movie Reviews of 13 Rue Madeleine
Movie Review: A lamb is ready ....
Summary: 3 Stars
This isn't a great movie. It is however, a good movie. THe potential is there for it to be great, but it doesn't rise to the occasion. The story might have been more engaging if it weren't done documentary style. Small things, such as the French and German characters speaking with the appropriate accents, would have improved the films quality.
I do however like the fact that there are no cheesy romantic subplots. It is also nice to see the Axis powers (in this case the Germans) being portrayed as competent individuals, rather than buffoons as so many other movies of the era do.
Ultimately, this movie is a must addition to my collection because of my love of Cagney. Originally, I had only seen the final scene of this movie when it was on AMC. I will not give it away, but I was so engaged by Cagney's laugh and the look on his face given the circumstances in the last minute of the film, I bought the film. If you're a Cagney fan, I don't think you'll be dissapointed. His performance is quite good. If you're not, then I think I'd skip this one.
Movie Review: Dated
Summary: 3 Stars
This movie served its purpose for the immediate post-war period. It pays tribute to our intelligence services during WWII. It is not, however, a great movie. Nor are there any great performances.
It does not provide a lot of suspense or action. It does not provide any great insights into WWII intelligence gathering or operations. The first part of the movie is a government primer on how thoroughly the intelligence agents are trained. The announcer's dramatic voice-over throughout the movie is intended to lend authenticity to the tale.
Cagney gives a credible low-key performance by subordinating his normally feisty character portrayal to the low-key script he was handed. The dangerous German counterspy who infiltrates the intelligence operation is revealed early in the movie. After that it is a story of sacrifice and duty to country. Worth seeing, but not worth buying.
Movie Review: 60-minunte documentary, 30 minutes suspense
Summary: 3 Stars
This is more of a documentary at times than a movie, but it's decent. It's not the normal exciting gangster fare than Cagney excelled in, but it's okay.
The first hour is a bit slow with the documentary style and then the last 35 minutes picks up considerably as the spy story is played out in dramatic fashion. Cagney was starting to show his age a bit but he still was pretty spry.
Richard Conte does a nice job as the German disguising himself as an American and eventually has a showdown with Cagney. That's in the suspenseful last 30 minutes which saves the film.
Movie Review: Still a good movie
Summary: 3 Stars
Mr. Cagney is still as good today as he was 60 years ago. I saw this movie back in the 50/s and it is still worth the time and money.Movie Review: A potentially good story goes nowhere
Summary: 2 Stars
13 Rue Madeleine started out with potential. It opens at a British spy school (where everybody seems to be Americans or French) and the man in charge of schooling this batch of students (Cagney) is told one of the students is a spy and it's up to him to determine who. Some quick scenes of spy training are shown depicting some of the training techniques employed by such schools. This was probably the most interesting part of the film.From there, the film jumps to graduation day and Cagney has determined who the spy is and is told to send this spy on a mission intended to decoy the Germans from the true date and location of the impending invasion of Europe. Things go wrong on this mission from the start and Cagney has to go in to clean up the mess.
The acting is only 'OK' by all but the mayor of a small French town and American actors play the German officers. They even speak English when speaking amongst themselves. While having 'Germans' speaking English detracts from the film, at least they spared us and didn't try to fake German accents. Furthermore, the Germans are depicted as being competent with their duties instead of bumbling idiots. For these reasons, the film rates two stars instead of only one.
However, this story missed out on so many chances to be a lot better. The spy is discovered from the start of the film and there are no tense moments at all. They could have written the film so that it appeared this one person was the spy but still left the possibility open for it to be somebody else. Furthermore, there are no tense moments in this film at all. There's no suspense and there's no action. It's just a bunch of actors going about living their lives.
Even when the German intellegence agents are onto what's going on the movie just jumps right to the plot point. There's a scene where the Germans are using radio direction finding equipment to triangulate the position of a British agent's broadcast and they find the agent within 10 seconds of the opening of the scene. Again, a lot of cat-and-mouse scenes could have been written into this story but as it is it's too flat - too linear. There's no drama, no suspense, and very little action. Not much to see here.